Ernie Els is hoping a radical change of coaches can propel him to Masters glory after 14 years of heartbreak. The 37-year-old South African has won two US Opens and one British Open, but has yet to strike gold at Augusta National, despite six top-10 finishes and twice being runner-up.
Leading German car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz and BMW issued a statement on Thursday slamming the alleged recent lurid behaviour of world motorsport governing body (FIA) president Max Mosley as ”disgraceful”. Both companies, with teams set to take part in this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, distanced themselves from the revelations about Mosley’s private life.
"Four kilograms lighter and with five horsepower more than last year, the new Honda Fireblade is capable of delivering performance at a level far higher than 99% of the riders who are likely to ride it are ever going to be capable of coping with," writes Gavin Foster.
Ernie Els withdrew from the Houston Open on Sunday because of a virus, giving him an unexpected two weeks off before going to the US Masters. ”I am very disappointed to have been forced to make this decision because I was really looking forward to playing this week,” Els said in a statement.
Dani Pedrosa won the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, holding off a challenge from four-time Moto GP world champion Valentino Rossi. Honda rider Pedrosa started second on the grid behind Jorge Lorenzo of Yamaha, but the Spaniard overtook the rookie immediately.
Defending drivers’ world champion Kimi Raikkonen bounced back to form and back into the scrap for this year’s title when he won the Malaysian Grand Prix for Ferrari on Sunday. But the Italian team’s hopes of a dream one-two finish were wrecked by Brazilian Felipe Massa spinning off while running second.
Ernie Els spent last week in West Palm Beach, resting and working on his game as he tries to peak for the Masters. It might not be long before he returns for good. Golf’s most global player said on Thursday that he was planning to move his home base from London to south Florida, where the weather is more suitable for golf in the winter.
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton avoided the mayhem around him to open the Formula One season with a pole-to-flag victory in a crash-strewn Australian Grand Prix on Sunday. The 23-year-old Briton, last year’s rookie sensation, finished 5,4 seconds ahead of Germany’s Nick Heidfeld in a BMW Sauber.
Lewis Hamilton got an early psychological edge over Kimmi Raikkonen, winning pole position for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix while the world champion will start near the back of the grid. McLaren’s Hamilton had the fastest times in the second and third runs of the three-phase qualifying session.
World number three Ernie Els has pulled out of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando because of fatigue, PGA Tour officials said on Monday. According to his management company, the South African wanted a break to help prepare for next month’s US Masters, the first Major of the year.
Ferrari are back on top, Lewis Hamilton is a title contender and two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso is back with Renault. Add night racing to all that and one of F1’s most exciting seasons in 2007 is set for a worthy follow-up in 2008.
An Australian man has been arrested after taking a new car on a test drive that lasted 6 200km, five days and almost took him from one side of the continent to the other. Police said the 30-year-old man walked into a car dealership in the southern city of Melbourne last Friday and asked to take a 2008 model Honda Accord for a spin.
World number three Ernie Els is in buoyant mood for this week’s Tampa Bay Championship at Palm Harbour after winning his first title on United States soil in nearly four years. The smooth-swinging South African shrugged off gusting winds in Sunday’s final round of the Honda Classic to seal his 16th PGA Tour victory by one shot.
"For me, the most difficult part of judging at the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists’ Car of the Year competition is not losing sight of the fact that I’m judging the cars not so much against each other as against their direct competitors in the market place." Gavin Foster rounds up the Car of the Year finalists.
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/ 20 February 2008
Australia’s postal service has increased the maximum weight for its delivery staff after struggling to attract applicants weighing less than 90kg, local media reported on Tuesday. The old limit was designed to allow "posties", as they are known here, to carry 40kg of mail on their small motorcycles for a total load of 130kg.
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/ 13 February 2008
Three forms of technical evidence submitted to the Johannesburg High Court on Wednesday fingered some of the accused in the Jeppestown ”massacre”. Two of them were linked through fingerprints to cars parked at the scene of the crime. DNA samples from clothes were linked to the blood of another accused.
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/ 13 February 2008
Britain’s Lewis Hamilton, the victim of racial abuse from Spanish fans earlier this month, took top honours on Tuesday in Formula One pre-season testing in southern Spain. The McLaren driver was fastest among the 16 drivers on the Jerez de la Frontera circuit with a time of one minute 19,102 seconds, beating his previous best time on the same track.
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/ 11 February 2008
Two tournaments and two top-10 finishes to start the season have buoyed Ernie Els as he switches his focus to the United States in preparation for the Masters at Augusta in April. The world number four recovered from a horror nine at the 18th in his first round at the inaugural Indian Masters to end tied sixth.
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/ 29 January 2008
Honda believes its revamped car will make the Formula One team more competitive this season after a disappointing 2007. Team principal Ross Brawn said Honda’s entire car design was re-evaluated after the team finished eighth in last year’s constructors’ championship with six points — 198 behind winners Ferrari.
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/ 25 January 2008
The cars we buy and the service we get are still getting better and better each year. That’s the conclusion reached in the fourth JD Power & Associates/<i>Car Magazine</i> 2007 South Africa customer satisfaction index (CSI) study released earlier this week.
Ernie Els is to cut back on his hectic international schedule in a bid to win more Majors. The 38-year-old South African is known to be among the most widely travelled of golfers on the circuits, regularly globe-trotting to events in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Only 10 years ago, Tata Motors unveiled its first car, a hatchback, that established the truck maker’s credentials as a car maker. On Thursday, the company unveils a car that will sell for just  500, less than half the cheapest car on the market.
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/ 19 December 2007
A KwaZulu-Natal street child — who allegedly stole money, clothing and jewellery from a car — was picked up, thrown into the boot of the car and then assaulted, police said on Wednesday. Spokesperson Captain Edmund Singh said the incident took place in Chatsworth’s Crofdene area in Durban at about 9.15pm.
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/ 18 December 2007
The 2007 Formula One season went down as one of the most thrilling to date, with a three-way race for the title that ended with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen edging McLaren teammates Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton in the tightest race for the drivers’ championship in 21 years.
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/ 5 November 2007
Spain’s Dani Pedrosa snatched the runners-up spot in the MotoGP world championship with victory in the season-ending Valencia Grand Prix after rival Valentino Rossi had to retire because of a technical problem. It was the first time that five-times world champion Rossi has finished outside the top two in any category.
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/ 2 November 2007
A bomb that was attached to a cash-in-transit vehicle in Durban was defused by the police’s bomb squad on Friday afternoon, police said. Spokesperson Superintendent Vincent Mdunge confirmed the incident at a shopping mall in Durban’s Montclair suburb, but said details were sketchy.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen turned the Formula One title battle into a three-way fight to the last race in Brazil on Sunday with victory in China after championship leader Lewis Hamilton skidded out. Hamilton’s double world champion teammate and closest title rival Fernando Alonso finished second with Ferrari’s Brazilian Felipe Massa third.
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/ 25 September 2007
Last week, at the Gauteng launch of its reborn Uno, Fiat kicked off proceedings by setting us loose on a section of the Carnival City casino off-road route. This seemed a little strange until we heard that the Italian company now includes a raised-body version of the Brazilian-built hatch in its line-up, intended to make it more suitable for those pesky African and South American dirt roads.
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/ 16 September 2007
Seven-time world champion Valentino Rossi, on a Yamaha, kept title-chasing Australian Casey Stoner on tenterhooks with victory in the Portuguese MotoGP on Sunday. Rossi came over the finish line just ahead of Dani Pedrosa after a tense battle with the Spaniard to claim just his fourth victory of the season.
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/ 9 September 2007
Double world champion Fernando Alonso led a McLaren one-two in the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday to cut team mate Lewis Hamilton’s lead to three points with four races remaining. Hamilton (22) had another highly impressive afternoon but the British rookie was doomed to follow in the Spaniard’s slipstream.
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/ 2 September 2007
Australian rider Casey Stoner took another stride towards his first world championship title by outclassing the field to claim his third consecutive MotoGP victory in Misano, Italy, on Sunday. The Ducati rider started from pole position for the San Marino Grand Prix and left most of his rivals in his wake.