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.
It has only taken two races of the new season for McLaren to get on the wrong side of Formula One officials — and Fernando Alonso — again. The team — kicked out of last year’s constructors’ championship — were back in trouble on Saturday, penalised for their drivers causing interference during qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
Brazilian Felipe Massa secured pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix on an all-Ferrari front row on Saturday. Driving in hot and humid conditions under heavy cloud cover, Massa was joined at the head of the field by Formula One world champion team mate Kimi Raikkonen, who lapped 0,482 seconds slower than the pole sitter’s time of 1,35.748.
Formula One championship leader Lewis Hamilton expects conditions for this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix to be the toughest he faces this year. Days after his brilliant win for McLaren at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, where the race-time temperature was 39 degrees Celsius, he said it could be even more sweltering at the Sepang circuit.
World champion Fernando Alonso won the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday to hand new team McLaren-Mercedes their first Formula One (F1) win since 2005. Rookie Lewis Hamilton, F1’s first black driver, added to the McLaren resurgence by finishing second ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, who won the Australian Grand Prix last month.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa snatched pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix with a scorching last lap in Saturday’s qualifying. The Brazilian, with a time of one minute, 35,043 seconds, was almost three-10ths of a second quicker than double world champion Fernando Alonso’s McLaren.
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/ 27 November 2006
A1 Grand Prix Team Switzerland’s Neel Jani won his and Switzerland’s first race of the new season from pole position on Sunday. Adrian Zaugg, at the wheel of A1 Team South Africa’s Vulindlela, finished 13th — 24,68 seconds behind Jani. The South African had qualified in eighth place on Saturday, only to be relegated to 11th.
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/ 25 November 2006
South Africa’s Vulindlela, with Adrian Zaugg at the wheel, qualified eighth out of 22 for the fourth round of the A1Grand Prix (GP) World Cup of Motorsport on Saturday. The 20-year-old winner of the A1 GP season-opening sprint race in The Netherlands in October finished 2,2 seconds behind pole-position winner A1 Team Switzerland.
One team is dominating formula one. Only instead of Ferrari, it’s Renault. Rather than the familar red racers out front, it’s the blue-and-yellow of Giancarlo Fisichella and world champion Fernando Alonso, who finished 1-2 and in the Malaysian Grand Prix made it look easy.
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/ 23 September 2005
Indonesia’s 15-year-old racer Doni Tata Pradita said on Friday his goal was to climb to the number-one ranking in the 125cc class of the World Championships. Doni, who rides the Yamaha TZ 125, is making his first ever appearance in the championship series as a wild card entrant at the Malaysian Motocycle Grand Prix which begins here on Friday.
World champion Michael Schumacher admitted in Malaysia on Sunday that his chances of retaining his crown for a sixth consecutive year are already not looking good after just two races of the season. This season has seen Ferrari plunge down the order, ending in seventh place in Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix.