Australian Mark Webber won a sunny British Grand Prix yesterday for Red Bull to deny Fernando Alonso a second successive victory and slash the Ferrari driver’s Formula One lead to 13 points.
Alonso, the winner at Silverstone last year, had led from pole position, but was powerless to prevent Webber powering past six laps from the end and then take the checkered flag by three seconds.
The victory was the 35-year-old’s second of the season, after Monaco, and it left him with 116 points to Alonso’s 129 after nine of 20 races.
“Another great day for us and a great day for me to win here again. It is fantastic,” he said on the team radio, before being interviewed on the podium by triple world champion Jackie Stewart.
Webber’s Red Bull teammate and double world champion Sebastian Vettel was third on a dry track with the sun shining over the circuit after days of rain that had left the campsites waterlogged and approach roads clogged with traffic.
Brazilian Felipe Massa was fourth for Ferrari, ahead of the Lotus pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean.
Jenson Button’s British Grand Prix jinx continued, before a predicted crowd of more than 125,000 people, with the McLaren driver failing to stand on the podium at his home race for the 13th year in a row.
The 2009 world champion, who has never finished higher than fourth at Silverstone, started 16th and ended up with only a point in 10th.
His teammate Lewis Hamilton, the 2008 champion, whose win that year remains the last by a British driver at home, was eighth after losing out to Michael Schumcher’s Mercedes in the closing laps.
Brazilian Bruno Senna was ninth for Williams.
Williams could have hoped for much more, but their Venezuelan driver Pastor Maldonado collided with Mexico’s Sergio Perez on lap 12, ending the Sauber driver’s race.
Stewards were due to rule on the incident, but Perez said they had to act.
“This guy will never learn if they don’t do something. He could hurt someone. Everybody has concerns about him,” Perez told the BBC.
Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev was the only athlete to “beat” a world record on Sunday at the Enhanced Games, winning the men’s 50m freestyle at the divisive competition where athletes were free to take performance-enhancing substances. His time of 20.81 seconds — which is not considered official — came in the final event of the night in Las Vegas, sparing the blushes of organizers who made claims that multiple world records would be surpassed due to a sophisticated doping regime. Gkolomeev, who was wearing a synthetic “supersuit” long banned at events such as the Olympics, outpaced Australia’s Cameron McEvoy’s 20.88 set in
The manager of the Yomiuri Giants, one of Japan’s most popular baseball teams, resigned yesterday after he was arrested for allegedly physically attacking his teenage daughter. Shinnosuke Abe allegedly grabbed the 18-year-old and forced her to the floor at their home in central Tokyo on Monday evening, reported national broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News, citing unnamed police sources. “Leaving like this really means I’m causing you a lot of trouble, and I feel truly sorry about that,” Abe told a hastily arranged news conference, his eyes red with tears. The former star catcher, who is among baseball-obsessed Japan’s most recognized sports figures,
For some, Cristiano Ronaldo remains the essential spearhead for Portugal’s FIFA World Cup bid, while others believe his presence would prevent Roberto Martinez’s strong side from flourishing. The debate around the five-time Ballon d’Or winner rages on, as it did at UEFA Euro 2024 and four years ago in Qatar — yet Ronaldo endures, ready to play in a record sixth World Cup. The 41-year-old remains a global superstar despite swapping the European elite for Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr, and is the leading men’s international goalscorer with 143 strikes. With 25 of those coming in 30 games under Martinez, the coach
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