Australian Mark Webber took back the Formula One championship lead from Lewis Hamilton yesterday after grabbing victory in a Hungarian Grand Prix that Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel had been favorite to win.
McLaren’s Hamilton retired with a suspected gearbox failure, only his second failure to score this season, and dropped to second place overall, four points adrift.
Vettel, starting on pole position for the seventh time in 12 races, but again failing to convert the advantage, fell foul of the safety car rules and finished third behind Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Webber now has 161 points to Hamilton’s 157, with Vettel on 151 and McLaren’s Jenson Button on 147. In one of the closest battles in years, Alonso has 141.
Meanwhile, Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn said Formula One could do without another new team and should make sure it retains the ones it already has.
The governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) is currently weighing up applications for the 13th and final slot, assuming no teams fall by the wayside before next year, with an announcement expected this month.
Those putting themselves forward include a partnership between Canada’s former world champion Jacques Villeneuve and Italy’s Durango.
Brawn, who won multiple championships with Ferrari as technical director before taking both crowns with Mercedes’ predecessors Brawn GP last year, said any new team would struggle to get a car together in time.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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