Sebastian Vettel took a surprise pole position for Red Bull ahead of Renault’s Fernando Alonso in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix yesterday.
The 21-year-old German grabbed the second pole position of his career and the first for his Renault-powered team, with a last-gasp lap of 1 minute, 36.184 seconds.
With his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber third behind Alonso, the previously dominant Brawn GP cars of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button were pegged back in fourth and fifth.
PHOTO: EPA
“Unbelievable that we made it to pole,” said Vettel, who became Formula One’s youngest race winner in Italy last year with Toro Rosso. “It was not easy. We had some problems with the car and we tried to run as little laps as possible.”
Spaniard Alonso, who clocked 1 minute, 36.381 seconds was an equally surprising presence in second for Renault, who made some radical changes to their car as they scrambled to catch up with the teams using the controversial rear diffusers.
“It has been strange for us with a completely new car, we went in to qualifying with some doubts and we are very happy with the result for sure,” the twice former world champion said.
Australian Webber’s time of 1 minute, 36.466 seconds was enough to beat the Brawn of Barrichello in fourth with the Brazilian’s British teammate Button, who won the first two races of the season from pole, in fifth.
“We knew they were competitive, but we didn’t think they were quite that competitive,” championship leader Button said of the Red Bull duo. “It’s a pity that we are starting behind them because its very tough here to overtake. So we’ll see what happens.”
Toyota’s Jarno Trulli and Nico Rosberg of Williams, both using the diffuser that was declared legal at an appeal hearing earlier in the week, were sixth and seventh, ahead of the last two world champions, Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier