Latest news with #motorRacing
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Robert Kubica seals emotional Le Mans 24 Hours victory for Ferrari
Poland's Robert Kubica sealed a deserved place in motor racing history as he took victory – alongside China's Ye Yifei and Britain's Philip Hanson – at the Le Mans 24 Hours. Hard fought with a relentless determination that has matched his refusal to be cowed after a life-threatening accident, his victory also secured an impressive third consecutive win for Ferrari at the 93rd edition of the vingt-quatre. The victory after 387 laps for the No 83 privateer Ferrari 499P, run by the Scuderia's works partner AF Corse, was the first overall win at Le Mans for drivers from Poland and China and will make Ye a household name in his home country, while for the 25-year-old Hanson it is a career high point in only his second run in the top, hypercar, category. Advertisement Related: Chadwick encouraged by female participation in motorsport before Le Mans debut However, it was surely of greatest import to Kubica for whom it was an understandably emotional moment. The victory was a triumph for a driver who has fought tirelessly to continue his career after he was seriously injured in a crash at the Andora Rally in 2011, leading to the partial amputation of his forearm. It all but ended his burgeoning F1 career, when he was set to join Ferrari the following year. However, he demonstrated immense fortitude, not least in returning to racing only a year later and now sealing a win in the greatest sportscar race of them all, putting in an exhausting five stints for more than three hours in the final phase of the race. Vindication for a driver Lewis Hamilton rated as one of the most talented he had raced. It was clear that tired as he was, nothing could have stopped Kubica from closing out the race himself. 'We deserve it. Happy for Ferrari. Three years in a row with three different crews, it is amazing,' he said. 'I was not supposed to do five stints at the end of the race. It is three hours and something in the car but fortunately I was able to control everything with a cool head, no mistakes and managed to bring it home.' Advertisement Moreover it was achieved in an enormously competitive field at the Circuit de la Sarthe. The hypercar class at Le Mans is in absolutely rude health, with eight major manufacturers now competing and three more, including Ford and McLaren, likely to join by 2027. The intensity of the competition at the race was immense with the cars running at sprint race pace solidly, with only one safety car deployed and nothing in it at the sharp end. At the close the No 83 took the flag by just 14 seconds from the second-placed No 6 Porsche of Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell, with the Ferrari No 51 of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi in third and the No 50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen fourth, all within 30 seconds of the lead after a full 24 hours. Ferrari would doubtless have preferred one of their works cars to have taken the honours and that had looked the most likely result for some time but, regardless, it was a prancing horse that won, their car once more a formidable competitor. In race pace it was indomitable, consistently leading and holding down the top three slots for long periods for their third win since they returned to the top flight at Le Mans in 2023 after a 50-year hiatus. A remarkable achievement for the Scuderia who had previously last won at La Sarthe in their heyday when they took six victories in a row between 1960 and 1965. Being Ferrari, there was of course drama too. Kubica and his colleagues had been aggrieved when Ferrari issued team orders in favour of the works cars in the mid-period of the race and doubtless felt some sense of justice when the race fell in their favour and they seized their chance. Advertisement With just under four hours remaining Pier Guidi had looked comfortable leading the three Ferraris, albeit with little to choose between them, when in a tiny but enormously costly misjudgement, he overcooked it into the chicane leading into the pit lane, clipped the kerb, spun and was left in the gravel. He was able to resume but the lead was gone and the No83 car took to the front. Yet the fight continued to the flag at unforgiving pace, the three Ferrari's hunted down by the No 6 Porsche which as the race entered the final two hours was able to move up to second place. Indeed the Porsche squad had thrown everything at the Ferraris. Having started at the very back of the hypercar field after being disqualified from qualifying for being underweight, a fired-up Estre launched an absolutely mammoth assault from the moment Roger Federer waved the tricolour to start the race on Saturday afternoon. He was decisive and committed and in a field of 21 cars, featuring works entries from Toyota, Alpine, Peugeot, Cadillac, BMW and Aston Martin, had moved up to third by the end of the second hour and was in the mix from then on. Indeed the No6 did hold the lead at times as the race ebbed and flowed against Ferrari, who ultimately just had the edge. Advertisement The Porsche duly pushed to the last, the final moments impossibly tense as the minutes inexorably counted down but appropriately it was Kubica behind the wheel to see his team home with familiarly steely resolve. In the LMP2 class the Inter Europol Competition Oreca of Tom Dillmann, Jakub Smiechowski and Nick Yelloly took the flag. The LMGT3 category was won by the Manthey Porsche of Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Ryan Hardwick.
The Guardian
16 hours ago
- Automotive
- The Guardian
Robert Kubica seals emotional Le Mans 24 Hours victory for Ferrari
Poland's Robert Kubica sealed a deserved place in motor racing history as he took victory – alongside China's Ye Yifei and Britain's Philip Hanson – at the Le Mans 24 Hours. Hard fought with a relentless determination that has matched his refusal to be cowed after a life-threatening accident, his victory also secured an impressive third consecutive win for Ferrari at the 93rd edition of the vingt-quatre. The victory after 387 laps for the No 83 privateer Ferrari 499P, run by the Scuderia's works partner AF Corse, was the first overall win at Le Mans for drivers from Poland and China and will make Ye a household name in his home country, while for the 25-year-old Hanson it is a career high point in only his second run in the top, hypercar, category. However, it was surely of greatest import to Kubica for whom it was an understandably emotional moment. The victor was a triumph for a driver who has fought tirelessly to continue his career after he was seriously injured in a crash at the Andora Rally in 2011, leading to the partial amputation of his forearm. It all but ended his burgeoning F1 career, when he was set to join Ferrari the following year. However, he demonstrated immense fortitude, not least in returning to racing only a year later and now sealing a win in the greatest sportscar race of them all, putting in an exhausting five stints for more than three hours in the final phase of the race. Vindication for a driver Lewis Hamilton rated as one of the most talented he had raced. It was clear that tired as he was, nothing could have stopped Kubica from closing out the race himself. 'We deserve it. Happy for Ferrari. Three years in a row with three different crews, it is amazing,' he said. 'I was not supposed to do five stints at the end of the race. It is three hours and something in the car but fortunately I was able to control everything with a cool head, no mistakes and managed to bring it home.' Moreover it was achieved in an enormously competitive field at the Circuit de la Sarthe. The hypercar class at Le Mans is in absolutely rude health, with eight major manufacturers now competing and three more, including Ford and McLaren, likely to join by 2027. The intensity of the competition at the race was immense with the cars running at sprint race pace solidly, with only one safety car deployed and nothing in it at the sharp end. At the close the No 83 took the flag by just 14 seconds from the second-placed No 6 Porsche of Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell, with the Ferrari No 51 of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi in third and the No 50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen fourth, all within 30 seconds of the lead after a full 24 hours. Ferrari would doubtless have preferred one of their works cars to have taken the honours and that had looked the most likely result for some time but, regardless, it was a prancing horse that won, their car once more a formidable competitor. In race pace it was indomitable, consistently leading and holding down the top three slots for long periods for their third win since they returned to the top flight at Le Mans in 2023 after a 50-year hiatus. A remarkable achievement for the Scuderia who had previously last won at La Sarthe in their heyday when they took six victories in a row between 1960 and 1965. Being Ferrari, there was of course drama too. Kubica and his colleagues had been aggrieved when Ferrari issued team orders in favour of the works cars in the mid-period of the race and doubtless felt some sense of justice when the race fell in their favour and they seized their chance. With just under four hours remaining Pier Guidi had looked comfortable leading the three Ferraris, albeit with little to choose between them, when in a tiny but enormously costly misjudgement, he overcooked it into the chicane leading into the pit lane, clipped the kerb, spun and was left in the gravel. He was able to resume but the lead was gone and the No83 car took to the front. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Yet the fight continued to the flag at unforgiving pace, the three Ferrari's hunted down by the No 6 Porsche which as the race entered the final two hours was able to move up to second place. Indeed the Porsche squad had thrown everything at the Ferraris. Having started at the very back of the hypercar field after being disqualified from qualifying for being underweight, a fired-up Estre launched an absolutely mammoth assault from the moment Roger Federer waved the tricolour to start the race on Saturday afternoon. He was decisive and committed and in a field of 21 cars, featuring works entries from Toyota, Alpine, Peugeot, Cadillac, BMW and Aston Martin, had moved up to third by the end of the second hour and was in the mix from then on. Indeed the No6 did hold the lead at times as the race ebbed and flowed against Ferrari, who ultimately just had the edge. The Porsche duly pushed to the last, the final moments impossibly tense as the minutes inexorably counted down but appropriately it was Kubica behind the wheel to see his team home with familiarly steely resolve. In the LMP2 class the Inter Europol Competition Oreca of Tom Dillmann, Jakub Smiechowski and Nick Yelloly took the flag. The LMGT3 category was won by the Manthey Porsche of Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Ryan Hardwick.
Times
22-05-2025
- Automotive
- Times
Jochen Mass obituary: Formula 1 driver and mentor
Jochen Mass could read a room as adroitly as he could a motor racing circuit. If asked to nominate his favourite car, he would begin by detailing the excellence of the Porsche 956 before adding that, of course, the 962 was a faster and more successful machine. The Sauber-Mercedes, in which he had won Le Mans, was a handful, but effective. Then he stopped himself. 'But in the Porsche 917, you'd get wheel spin at 200mph.' 'For a man who had 114 starts in Formula 1 alone, I imagine this was like asking your accountant to talk about his favourite tax return,' said the motor racing journalist Jonny Lieberman. 'Still, he didn't miss a beat. It was exactly what everyone at the table wanted to
The Guardian
17-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Skid marks, swear jars and an early night: welcome to sport's nanny state
A 14-year-old has been taking the Indian Premier League by storm. A 17-year-old may win this year's Ballon d'Or. Last month another 17-year-old became the youngest winner of a Formula Two race. In darts the last world champion was 17, a 14-year-old just became the youngest winner of a World Darts Federation event and this week the promoter Barry Hearn described watching a prodigy who 'had a 106 average and checked out 140 and 154'. He was only 10. The 14‑year‑old Polish snooker player Michal Szubarczyk is about to become the sport's youngest ever professional. In this context it is a little hard to complain about the infantilisation of sport. And yet. For all its recent Netflix-promoted virality, motor racing has always seemed an unusually grown-up pastime. For 75 years Formula One has given us strength, skill, drama and occasional scandal, heroes and villains, bravery and tragedy. A global survey in 2021 found the average age of the sport's fanbase was 32, but in 2022 84% of the people who watched the British Grand Prix on Channel 4 (and 68% of those watching on Sky) were aged 35 or over. Which made it only more jarring when its administrators started to obsess over schoolyard distractions such as swearing and underpants. You could argue the sport has always been associated with skid marks but its pivot towards the trouser-based variety in 2022, over concerns that flammable fabrics might be being used by drivers, seemed unnecessary. ('I'm reliably informed our drivers go commando,' said Red Bull's Christian Horner. 'If they want to check my arse, feel free,' said the French driver Pierre Gasly.) Then the issue of bad language blew up, when Max Verstappen was punished for some mild swearing during a press conference at the Singapore Grand Prix last September. The 27-year-old was ordered to complete a 'work of public interest', which turned out to be using some of the time he was anyway planning to spend in Kigali later in the year helping the Rwanda Automobile Club with the launch of an Affordable Cross Car. Obviously this took Verstappen way out of his comfort zone, in that the cars he normally spends his time in are anything but affordable and the entire experience made him not so much cross as furious. 'It's just the world we live in. You can't share your opinion because it's not appreciated apparently,' he said. 'Everyone is super sensitive about everything.' Last November the Grand Prix Drivers' Association wrote an open letter addressing the big issues the sport was grappling with: 'There is a difference between swearing intended to insult others and more casual swearing, such as you might use to describe bad weather,' they pointed out. 'Our members are adults. They do not need to be given instructions about matters as trivial as underpants.' For some reason the Federation International de l'Automobile, the governing body of global motor sport, has recently sought to cast itself as a sporting administrative version of The Blues Brothers' Sister Mary Stigmata, the nun who becomes so incensed by the siblings' fruity language she ends up furiously slapping them about the head with a stick before decrying their 'filthy mouths and bad attitudes' and ordering them to 'get out and don't come back until you've redeemed yourselves'. (They, too, go on to accomplish some extraordinary things with cars, the film famously involving the destruction of 103 of them.) In January the FIA leaned further into the role, introducing new and even harsher rules governing what they call 'misconduct' and define as either swearing or 'assaulting (elbowing, kicking, punching, hitting, etc)'. These amounted to the creation of an extraordinarily lavish swear jar, with fines for F1's foul-mouthed motorists at €40,000 (£33,700) and rising to €120,000, plus suspensions and point deductions. The rules were wildly excessive and equally unpopular, though they did in effect stop anyone in the sport publicly saying what they really thought of them. After several months of grumbling this week there was significant row-back, or as the FIA described it a 'major improvement', with more sober fines and the threat of suspension lifted. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion One curious thing about this collision between speeding cars and individual liberties is that it is the exactly the context in which the term 'nanny state' seems to have been invented. The then Conservative MP Iain Macleod snuck it into an article he wrote in 1965 railing against 'the perishing nonsense of a plan for a 70mph speed limit even on motorways', an inauspicious birth for a phrase that was to take root so efficiently, given it was not only hidden deep within a random issue of the Spectator but also within a diatribe that was itself perishing nonsense. 'Doesn't the minister realise that his new restriction is as unenforceable as it is undesirable?' Macleod wailed; it was swiftly shown to reduce casualties by 20% and remains in force 60 years later. On the very day the FIA announced its latest stance on swearing, the Football Association, Premier League and Football League agreed to bring the closure of the summer transfer windows forward to 7pm, apparently so as not to delay anyone's bedtime. 'The transfer window traditionally closes at 11pm,' reported PA Media, 'but the earlier deadline is intended to allow club and league officials to complete their work at more sociable hours.' This in an industry that is entirely focused on making things happen on evenings and weekends. For a few hours on Wednesday it felt like only a matter of time before the England and Wales Cricket Board published its official position on how much sugar helps the medicine go down. By the time they made a sequel to The Blues Brothers, 18 years after the wildly successful original, the studio funding it had forced on its creatives a more family-friendly position. The new film flopped miserably. 'We wrote a terrific script, then Universal eviscerated it,' complained the director, John Landis. 'They couldn't use profanity, which is basically cutting the Blues Brothers' nuts off.'
Bloomberg
11-05-2025
- Automotive
- Bloomberg
Africa's Bid to Host a Formula 1 Grand Pix
Next Africa Formula 1 cars last raced in Africa in 1993, but now investors and governments are making a concerted effort to bring motor racing's elite series back to the continent with South Africa, Rwanda and Morocco counted as potential hosts. Jennifer Zabasajja reports. (Source: Bloomberg)
