Rubens Barrichello picked up his second win in three races to lead a Brawn GP one-two at the Italian Grand Prix yesterday.
Barrichello and teammate Jenson Button both passed the top three thanks to one-stop strategies to lead the sweep at the Monza circuit.
The former Ferrari driver, coming off his first victory in five years at Valencia last month, shaved two points off Button’s overall Formula One championship lead by getting within 14 points with four Grand Prix to race.
Lewis Hamilton of McLaren crashed on his final lap while running third, allowing Kimi Raikkonen to finish on the podium at Ferrari’s home race.
Red Bull’s title hopes were hanging by a thread after Mark Webber crashed on the opening lap and Sebastian Vettel finished eighth.
Webber, who started 10th, went off at the Della Roggia turn after tangling with Robert Kubica of BMW Sauber to see his deficit to Button stretched to 28.5 points, while Vettel is now 26 points behind the British driver.
Button has 80 points, Barrichello has 66, Vettel — who won in the rain at Monza last year — 54 and Webber 51.5.
Hamilton was heading for a third top-three finish in four races before spinning out at the high-speed Curva di Lesmo corner.
Giancarlo Fisichella finished ninth in his Ferrari debut after replacing Luca Badoer.
Raikkonen passed Adrian Sutil, who started second, going into the opening Del Rettifilo corner, while Barrichello, Button and Tonio Liuzzi all pushed ahead of Heikki Kovalainen, who would finish sixth after starting fourth for McLaren.
Hamilton, on a two-stop strategy along with Raikkonen and Sutil, had built a near 15-second lead over Barrichello by his pit after 15 laps for a 3.7 second advantage over Raikkonen and 4.7 seconds on Sutil, and would drop to third behind the Brawns after his stop.
Barrichello stayed ahead of Button after both drivers pitted halfway through the 53-lap race and both moved ahead of Hamilton after his last stop, with Button enjoying a near four-second lead over his fellow Briton while trailing Barrichello by five seconds.
Barrichello hung on for his first podium at Monza since winning the race for Ferrari in 2004.
Sutil finished fourth to pick up his first points, Fernando Alonso of Renault was fifth and BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld was seventh.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB