Formula One’s governing body has given Red Bull’s Max Verstappen a “gentle warning” about his driving after a controversial Belgian Grand Prix, team principal Christian Horner said yesterday.
“[FIA race director] Charlie [Whiting] was keen to show him a replay of Spa,” Horner told Sky Sports television ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.
“It was a gentle warning to say ‘that will be a black and white flag’ ... a bit of a warning,” he said.
A black and white flag can be waved once at a driver during a race to warn him that he has been reported for unsporting behavior.
If the driver does it again, a black flag will be shown which tells him he has been excluded and must return immediately to the pits.
Verstappen tangled with Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel at the start in Spa and then aggressively defended against Raikkonen when the Finn tried to pass later in the race.
Raikkonen, the 2007 champion, accused the 18-year-old of forcing him to brake by changing position and expressed concern that he had acted in that way as payback for what had happened earlier.
The Formula One paddock has been divided by Verstappen’s actions, which were not punished by race stewards at the time, with some feeling the Dutch youngster had done no wrong, while others condemned him.
“In the middle of the straight you are allowed to do one move as long as the other car is not alongside you,” said McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, who felt Verstappen had not broken that rule.
Horner said Verstappen cared little about what the others thought.
“Like any 18-year-old, [the criticism] seems to be going in one ear and out the other,” he said. “He really does not care.”
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
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
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier