Lewis Hamilton began his quest for a record-equaling seventh world title by topping the times on Friday as Formula One roared back with a full day’s practice and an official technical protest of his Mercedes car at the belated season-opening Austrian Grand Prix.
Three months after the canceled traditional curtain-raiser in Australia and six months on from the last race, it was business as usual from the dominant newly repainted Black Arrows Mercedes men, with Valtteri Bottas completing a familiar one-two as the sport reignited after its longest off-season.
“It’s great to be back,” said Hamilton, who is seeking to draw level with seven-time champion Michael Schumacher in the record books. “It’s been a long time coming, so it feels great to feel the new car for the first time since February.”
Photo: AP
“It’s quite a big difference to the one we got to test at Silverstone and I don’t remember what I was like in February, to be honest. It was so long ago,” he said.
Hamilton said he would take his initial supremacy over his competitors “with a pinch of salt.”
“What’s positive is the car felt good today,” he said. “It definitely feels like in general, compared to last year, we have continued to improve it and that is a positive.”
Speaking before rivals Red Bull protested officially at Mercedes’ innovative new steering system, Hamilton said that it was difficult to say whether he had an edge over his rivals after just one day.
“That’s difficult to say — it’s definitely looking good, but you can never take too much from practice and, if you look at some of the other teams, they were maybe down on power modes or up on power modes or fuel or whatever it may be.”
“So we’ll take it with a pinch of salt, try to improve the car tonight and come back with it tomorrow,” he said about yesterday’s qualifying, which began after press time last night.
Hamilton, in commanding form in the morning and afternoon sessions, was quickest in 1 minute, 4.304 seconds to lead Bottas by 0.197 seconds and third-placed Sergio Perez, in Racing Point’s pink Mercedes, by 0.657 seconds.
Sebastian Vettel, in his last season with Ferrari, was fourth for the Italian outfit ahead of McLaren-bound Daniel Ricciardo of Renault and Lando Norris of McLaren.
Lance Stroll, in the second Racing Point, was seventh ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc in the second Ferrari and his future teammate Carlos Sainz of McLaren.
Verstappen revealed afterward that his performance was heavily curtailed by running with a broken front wing shortly before his Red Bull team confirmed, on a day of hectic action, that they had lodged an official protest over Mercedes’ dual-axis steering (DAS) system.
The system allows drivers to adjust the toe angle of the car by pushing or pulling the steering wheel. It was used by both Mercedes drivers on Friday. In the early hours of yesterday, race stewards threw out the protest, declaring DAS to be “a legitimate part of the steering system.”
Formula One yesterday was given a medical thumbs-up when organizers announced that everyone involved at this weekend’s grand prix had tested negative for the COVID-19 virus.
In a statement, the organizers said that 4,032 personnel had been tested from June 26 to Thursday without a single positive result.
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