Jenson Button took his first pole position for McLaren yesterday when he clocked the fastest time during qualifying for today’s Belgian Grand Prix.
It was the 31-year-old Briton’s first pole in 60 races for the Woking-based team, who endured a tough time in qualifying during the first half of the season.
The 2009 champion clocked a best lap time of the Spa Francorchamps circuit of 1 minute, 47.573 seconds, edging out Japanese Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber by two tenths of a second.
Photo: EPA
Charismatic Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado of Williams was third quickest, followed by Finn Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus and Mexican Sergio Perez of Williams.
Championship leader Spaniard Fernando Alonso of Ferrari could only manage sixth, closely followed by championship contenders Red Bull driver Australian Mark Webber and 2008 champion Briton Lewis Hamilton in the second McLaren.
Romain Grosjean was ninth fastest in the second Lotus, ahead of Paul di Resta, who clocked the tenth fastest time for Force India.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later