Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari boss signs new multi-year deal - despite dreadful winless run
Vasseur's position has been under scrutiny this season with Ferrari yet to land a single win outside of Hamilton's sprint victory in China in March.
Former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has even been linked with the job since he was ousted earlier this month.
However, in a statement released ahead of this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix - the concluding round before the summer break - Ferrari said in a statement: 'Scuderia Ferrari HP is pleased to announce that it has extended, with a multiple-year contract, its agreement with Fred Vasseur, who will continue as team principal for the coming Formula One seasons.
'Fred joined the Scuderia at the beginning of 2023, bringing with him extensive motorsport experience and a proven ability to develop talent and build competitive teams across all levels of racing. Since then, he has laid a solid foundation with the ambition of returning Ferrari to the top of Formula One.
'Renewing Fred's contract reflects Ferrari's determination to build on the foundations laid so far. His ability to lead under pressure, embrace innovation, and pursue performance aligns fully with Ferrari's values and long-term ambitions.
'Under Fred's leadership, Scuderia Ferrari HP is united, focused, and committed to continuous improvement. The trust placed in him reflects the team's confidence in its strategic direction and reinforces a shared determination to deliver the results that Ferrari's fans, drivers, and team members expect and deserve.'
Since his transfer from Mercedes, Hamilton has not landed a grand prix podium in Ferrari colours - a streak of 13 races - the deepest into the season he has ever gone without a top-three finish.
He is sixth in the standings, 157 points off the championship pace and 30 points behind team-mate Charles Leclerc. Ferrari are second in the constructors' standings.
Hamilton said at last week's round in Belgium that he had staged meetings with all of Ferrari's key figures - including chairman John Elkann, CEO Benedetto Vigna and Vasseur - and submitted two documents outlining his vision as to why the Italian giants are not up to speed. Ferrari's last world drivers' title came in 2007, with their most recent constructors' crown the following year.
'Today we want to recognise what has been built and commit to what still needs to be achieved,' said Vigna. 'It reflects our trust in Fred's leadership - a trust rooted in shared ambition, mutual expectations and clear responsibility.
'We move forward with determination and focus, united in our pursuit of the level of performance Ferrari has to aim for.'
Frenchman Vassuer continued: 'I'm grateful for the trust Ferrari continues to place in me. This renewal is not just a confirmation - it's a challenge to keep progressing, to stay focused, and to deliver.
'Over the past 30 months, we've laid strong foundations, and now we must build on them with consistency and determination. We know what's expected, and we're all fully committed to meeting those expectations and taking the next step forward together.'
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Times
21 minutes ago
- Times
How Gordon Brown's ‘baby bonds' failed to raise a nation of investors
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The tax-free scheme was designed to encourage parents to invest for their children's future, and all babies born between September 1, 2002 and January 2, 2011 were eligible. In all, 6.3 million accounts were opened, and the government paid £2 billion into the accounts, which could be accessed from 18. Yet child trust funds were scrapped by the coalition government in 2011 and many have since been lost or forgotten. Some investors have even been locked out of their funds. The first children with funds turned 18 in September 2020. The latest available data shows the total value of the funds is about £9 billion. While up to 2.8 million accounts have now matured, of these, about a quarter (670,000) have not been claimed. On average it's estimated that each young person could have an account worth about £2,000. A further study revealed that most of the accounts did not have any money paid into them between April 2023 and April 2024, suggesting they've been abandoned as a savings vehicle. Maike Currie, an investment and savings expert who worked for Hargreaves Lansdown until recently, said: 'Child trust funds were a victim of the age of austerity after the 2008 financial crisis. 'On reflection, they were always doomed to fail — starting with the elaborate name. Many people were put off, thinking these were the preserve of trust fund babies, while others simply did not know about them. 'This simply reiterates the importance of awareness and education if you're to reignite a nation of investors. If the government today fails on getting this right, they will have another flop on their hands with disastrous consequences.' Education about these accounts was lacking — and remains the case, as shown by a trip by Money in April to one school where many pupils had no idea they had a child trust fund. The initial sum of £250 was doubled to £500 for low-income families. Children had a second payment when they reached seven. However, in 2010, the initial payment was reduced to £50, or £100 for lower-income families, and the second payment at seven scrapped. The first payment was abolished entirely in 2011. New parents were also invited to choose a home for the free cash. They could invest it in the stock market (either choosing the investments themselves or selecting a stakeholder version where the investments were chosen by the provider) or choose a savings-style account where interest was paid. If an account was not opened by the child's parent, HM Revenue & Customs set up a stakeholder account on the child's behalf. Many parents never engaged with the scheme. HMRC stepped in on behalf of 1.7 million parents (28 per cent) who failed to find a home for the £250 within the required 12-month period. All HMRC-allocated accounts were investment-based. According to the Share Foundation, a charity that helps to trace unclaimed funds, more than £400 million is sitting unclaimed in HMRC-allocated accounts. More than half of the unclaimed accounts worth £274 million belong to young adults on low incomes. About 55,000 trust funds mature every month and the charity forecasts that nearly £1 billion will be unclaimed for low-income young adults by the end of this parliament. Gavin Oldham from the Share Foundation said: 'Since September 2020, when the first account holders started turning 18, child trust fund owners have been able to withdraw funds or transfer savings into an adult Isa. 'Yet there's an enormous amount of money sitting unclaimed by youngsters, who could use it to go towards tuition fees, a first home or simply to kickstart their own savings for the future.' The charity has matched more than 85,000 young people with their child trust funds, recovering more than £165 million for young adult account owners. The accounts will continue to mature until 2029, when the last children to get a fund will turn 18, but the worry is that many won't be reunited with their money. • NatWest says stolen £8,500 child trust fund is not its problem There were many other criticisms of the scheme. For example, the investment options were limited and expensive. A parliamentary report highlighted that investment charges for managing the funds were 'very high'. Another issue is that no provision was made for children with disabilities who were unable to manage their own finances. A report has previously suggested 80,000 such young people were unable to access their funds without their families going through the Court of Protection — a process that can be costly and time-consuming. If the amount in the fund is relatively small, the legal fees might outweigh claiming the cash. Analysts have looked for positive outcomes. There was some evidence to show that the accounts appeared to have led some parents to open savings accounts for older siblings who did not benefit. However, it found the scheme did not have a statistically significant effect on the rate of savings for children overall. Education is essential when it comes to encouraging people to invest. Many prefer to keep their savings safe in risk-free cash accounts, where they are unlikely to keep pace with inflation. If you have long enough to ride out the ups and downs of the stock market, investing usually results in a much higher return. A £100 monthly investment into the average global equity fund for the past 18 years (£21,600) would today be worth about £52,800, according to analysis by the investment platform AJ Bell. The same £100 a month saved in an average child's savings account over the last 18 years at 2.93 per cent would today be worth about £28,465, according to Moneyfacts. That's 85 per cent less than if the money had been invested. Currie said: 'Education, awareness and ease are the cornerstones to creating a nation of investors or to put it differently: there needs to be a seismic shift in trust, ease and confidence. 'In the UK, investing is still associated with gambling — people must understand that when you're investing you're owning real assets and the potential for future growth. It's also about getting to grips with the concept of risk and understanding different levels of risk — and the hidden risks of holding too much cash against a backdrop of inflation and longer lives. These are big hurdles to overcome to establish a culture of retail investing in the UK.' • How to get a nation of savers investing Laith Khalaf from AJ Bell said that the UK had a long way to go before reaching the investing culture in the US. 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Tayo, who lives in Leeds and is studying accounting and finance, watched a TikTok video that prompted him to check with his parents about a child trust fund. They remembered setting one up and contributing to it for a time but couldn't remember with which bank. Olutunde said: 'As a family we moved a lot, including abroad. The contributions would have stopped when we went abroad and the paperwork was lost. I came across the Share Foundation who helped me locate where my account was — with NatWest. 'It took a long time to access the money because I didn't know which address was registered with my account, so I kept failing security. Eventually I got through and found I had £2,400. I was shocked.' Olutunder decided to spend about £400 on a holiday to Italy to celebrate his 21st birthday and invested the rest. But he said more needs to be done to educate young people about the world of investing. He said: 'I have a friend who also located his child trust fund recently. 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BBC News
22 minutes ago
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My 30-year-old world record 'not a good sign for athletics'
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Edwards was 'remarkable' When Edwards arrived at Gothenburg's Ullevi Stadium, no-one had ever jumped beyond 18 metres in 'legal' wind the first two rounds of the competition, he had managed it landed beyond the measuring board with his opening-round jump of 18.16m and then added another 13cm to the record around 20 minutes later in what is one of British athletics' greatest was the event's form athlete that year, arriving in Sweden as the world record holder after jumping 17.98 to beat American Willie Banks' previous mark by one centimetre and had also recorded the longest jump in history of a wind-assisted has always described himself as a sprinter, rather than a jumper, likening his contact with the ground through the hop-step-jump phases to a pebble skimming the water and at 71kg was also lighter than many other had changed his technique that season, adopting a double arm action - rather than an alternate arm movement - that he said made him "so well balanced" through all of his nevertheless he was far from confident, admitting that he bought sunglasses at Gothenburg airport to hide his eyes when he was warming up so his competitors "wouldn't see the fear" he his rivals saw was very different."In our training sessions, we studied Edwards videos day in, day out," Jerome Romain, who took the bronze medal in Gothenburg, said. 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But the forces are so extreme in triple jump, indeed long jump, even high jump when people take off and I'm not sure that that sort of trampoline effect is able to have the same impact."Dr Tom Allen, sports engineering expert at Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Canterbury Visiting Erskine Fellow, agrees that while the shoes offer gains in running economy, the impact of the shoes on jumping events is "likely to be small or negligible". Will the record ever be broken? The closest anyone has come to Edwards' record was 10 years ago when American Christian Taylor jumped world leading distance this year is 17.80m, while last year's Olympic gold was won with 17.86m."He [Edwards] can rest easy for a while," Romain said. "This is not an easy feat, I'm telling you."Edwards says he does not know how he will feel if his record goes."It's been a part of me for so long now," he said. 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Reuters
22 minutes ago
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