Kimi Raikkonen of Finland won a shortened Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday after the race on a rain-drenched track was stopped because of spinouts and crashes.
The race was halted during the 55th lap, with Italy's Giancarlo Fisichella in front. But officials declared the race over at the end of the 53rd lap, when Raikkonen was first.
PHOTO: AFP
Only 10 of the 20 drivers finished the race, which normally runs 71 laps.
This was the second consecutive victory for Raikkonen, who won last month's Malaysian Grand Prix.
Fisichella celebrated with his crew moments after the race was stopped, then learned he came in second.
``I won the race, but rules are rules,'' he said. ``But I never thought I would get second place to begin with, so this is a great result.''
Five-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher was knocked out of the running earlier when his car spun off the 4.309km Interlagos course. Also spinning out in the same wet corner were Juan Pablo Montoya, Antonio Pizzonia, Jensen Button and Justin Wilson.
No one was hurt but all the cars were damaged.
Rubens Barrichello, on the pole, was forced out because of engine trouble. The Brazilian drove his Ferrari off the track during the 47th lap after taking the lead in the 44th.
That left both Ferrari drivers, Schumacher and Barrichello, out of the race.
``The car came out of the lake corner and it cut out, completely,'' Barrichello said. ``I'm not sure yet what happened. Up to that moment it was all going fine.''
Raikkonen, in a McLaren-Mercedes, finished in one hour, 29 minutes, 53.179 seconds. Fisichella was 0.831 seconds behind. Spain's Fernando Alonso was third, followed by Britain's David Coulthard and Germany's Heinz-Harald Frentzen.
The race was stopped shortly after Alonso went out of control and crashed in debris that littered the track following Mark Webber's crash a short time earlier.
Alonso was taken away in a stretcher and gave a thumbs up sign as he was carried away. The Spanish driver was taken by helicopter to a hospital and was ``out of danger,'' but details of his injuries were not immediately available, race spokesman Marcio Fonseca said.
A hospital statement said that he was conscious and in stable condition.
Webber appeared unharmed and wasn't sure why he spun and crashed into a fence. ``I lost all grip,'' he said. ``I don't know why. There may have been something on the track.''
The Rakuten Monkeys on Sunday downed the CTBC Brothers 2-1, handing the hosts their second consecutive loss in the best-of-seven CPBL Taiwan Series at the Taipei Dome. Monkeys’ ace starter Pedro Fernandez of the Dominican Republic dominated on the mound, cruising through six scoreless innings before giving up a run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh inning. He gave up only three hits and walked two batters in a 93-pitch outing, giving his Taoyuan-based team an edge. Offensively, the Monkeys’ leadoff batter Lin Li hit Brothers starter Brandon Leibrandt’s pitch over the center-field wall in the game’s first at-bat,
The tiny village club of Mjallby AIF on Monday won the top tier Swedish soccer league with a 2-0 away win at IFK Gothenburg, sealing the title with three rounds of matches remaining. Jacob Bergstrom and Tom Pettersson scored the goals in Mjallby’s 20th win in 27 league games. Mjallby has a population of fewer than 1,400 people and plays in an outdated 6,000-seat stadium with stands weathered by the winds of the Baltic Sea. “It’s a huge relief to experience this now, a relief with three games to go,” said Anders Torstensson, a former army officer and secondary-school teacher who coaches the
Jahmyr Gibbs was offered oxygen on the bench after a 78-yard run. He turned it down. Clearly, he was not out of breath. Gibbs on Monday scored on a long sprint in the second quarter, a five-yard spinning plunge in the third and accounted for a career-high 218 yards from the scrimmage to lead the Detroit Lions in a 24-9 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “You felt like this was coming,” Detroit coach Dan Campbell said. “This has been building.” The Lions (5-2) bounced back from a loss as they have done flawlessly for nearly three years, extending their NFL-long streak of 51 games
Rafael Leao on Sunday shot AC Milan to the top of Serie A with a brace in a 2-1 win over ACF Fiorentina who were enraged by the “scandalous” awarding of the penalty that decided the game. Portugal winger Leao pushed Milan one point ahead of local rivals Inter, SSC Napoli and AS Roma with a coolly taken spot-kick, given for what looked like a soft foul on Santiago Gimenez by Fabiano Parisi, with four minutes remaining. That goal capped a fine first league start of the season for Leao and came after he drew the hosts level with a brilliantly struck
RSS