Defending world champion Lewis Hamilton continued to reign supreme in one-lap speed yesterday when he secured his 11th pole position in 12 races for Mercedes by topping qualifying for today’s Italian Grand Prix.
The 30-year-old Briton powered around the high-speed Autodromo Nazional in warm sunshine to clock a best lap of 1 minute, 23.383 seconds, finishing three-tenths clear of a resurgent Kimi Raikkonen, who was cheered to the flag in his Ferrari.
The Finn, inspired by the crowd packed into the main grandstand opposite the Ferrari pits, produced a flying late effort to beat his teammate Sebastian Vettel, who wound up third. Raikkonen secured his first front row start for Ferrari since the 2009 Monaco Grand Prix.
The Ferrari revival was bad news for Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg, who had to change engines before the session.
The German, who trails Hamilton by 28 points in the standings, reverted to an older power unit and finished fourth, his worst qualifying result of the year.
For Hamilton, it was a seventh straight pole, enabling him to emulate Michael Schumacher, the last driver to achieve the feat in 2000-2001. The record is held by Ayrton Senna with eight in 1989.
It was Hamilton’s 49th career pole and signaled his 20th front row start in succession. His success also extended Mercedes’ run to 23 poles, one short of the record set by the Williams team in 1993.
Brazilian Felipe Massa was fifth fastest ahead of his Williams teammate Valtteri Bottas, Mexican Sergio Perez of Force India and Frenchman Romain Grosjean of Lotus.
Nico Hulkenberg was ninth for Force India ahead of Swede Marcus Ericsson of Sauber.
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