Category: Motor Sports

• McLaren teammate Lando Norris locks in second

• Lewis Hamilton finds form to secure fifth for Ferrari

Oscar Piastri barely broke a sweat under the blazing Catalan sun, demonstrating a fearsome control to claim pole for the Spanish Grand Prix. Indeed, such has been the dominance and the nonchalance with which he claimed this pole and his wins this season, it was put to him that he was taking on Kimi Räikkönen’s mantle as the Ice Man, albeit in the somewhat less flattering form for the 24-year-old of Ice Boy.

Piastri’s pole was imperious at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, beating his teammate Lando Norris into second by a huge two-tenths of a second, the biggest margin of the season, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in third, three-tenths down.

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Team principal has turned Williams around in a short space of time and is looking to 2026 for a serious title charge

Finding themselves fighting off Ferrari and mauling the midfield, these are heady times for a resurgent Williams. The team principal James Vowles has engineered an extraordinary comeback but this year’s progress is likely to be just the start for a team determined to return to the heights of Formula One, which they once dominated.

That Williams’ form has changed drastically could not have been clearer than at the Miami GP. Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz were in a fight with the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, the Scuderia finding themselves at one point trying to catch Albon, who took fifth place and at the same time fending off a charging Sainz.

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• Rules intended to close gap between the best drivers

• McLaren’s Oscar Piastri is fastest in second practice

All the talk in Spain this week has been about the potential impact of the FIA’s clampdown on the flexing of front wings and the governing body’s hope this might close up the pecking order on the grid. Certainly those chasing the dominant McLaren were optimistic that might be the case.

The technical regulation was imposed as teams look to push the boundaries of the rules, with a flex in the wing under load affording the maximum downforce in corners. In order to maintain a level playing field, the wings must now pass a deflection test measuring the leeway of their flex. This has been reduced from 15mm to 10mm.

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• Driver backs Riccardo Adami despite terse exchanges

• ‘There’s a lot of speculation, most of it is BS’

Lewis Hamilton has dismissed speculation about what has been interpreted as a fractious relationship with Riccardo Adami, his race engineer at Ferrari, describing it as “BS” and insisting the pair enjoy a healthy working relationship.

The issue has previously been raised several times this season as Hamilton develops his dynamic with Adami and came to the fore once more because of some testy exchanges at the last round in Monaco, including when Hamilton asked his engineer at the end of the race: “Are you upset with me or something?” To which he appeared to receive no reply.

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Lando Norris closed on his teammate Oscar Piastri in the season standings after an experimental race at the storied Monte Carlo circuit

Oliver Bearman of Haas, who has already taken a 10-place grid penalty, had a cooling contraption still attached to his car when he went to leave the pits just then. A member of the crew came and grabbed it, but Haas may face another penalty.

Grid positions on the official F1 site don’t seem to be updated with Hamilton’s penalty, but anyway, I believe this is how the cars will line up on the grid in about 40 minutes:

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New book shines a light on the women who stole headlines on an F1 support bill 50 years ago, with Beckers going on to star at Le Mans and hold the Guinness World Record

Monaco’s place in Formula One history has long since been established but two little-known races from the principality 51 years ago remain etched in the memory of those who took part, when women blazing a trail in the male-dominated motor racing world took to the track in Monte Carlo.

Christine Beckers competed in the first Grand Prix Monte-Carlo Féminin on 26 May 1974 and now, at 81 is as irrepressibly enthused about racing as she was when she fell in love with the sport as a teenager.

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McLaren’s Lando Norris pipped Charles Leclerc to pole in Monaco. Join John Brewin for reaction

Norris takes it at 1.11 536. Seems like a huge lap already. The bottom five are Gasly, Stroll, Colopinto, Hulkenberg, Hadjar and Lawson.

Stroll has caused am issue with Gasly, cutting across the chicane.

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The big names are getting younger at the same time the infantilisation of sport grows apace

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.

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• Briatore to return 17 years after Crashgate scandal
• Driver Doohan replaced by Colapinto for next five races

The Alpine team principal, Oliver Oakes, has resigned from the team with Flavio Briatore, the Italian who was once given a lifetime ban from Formula One, set to step up to assume team principal duties.

Oakes was appointed only nine months ago and the 37-year-old’s resignation, which a statement from Alpine read they had accepted with “immediate effect”, comes as the team replace their driver Jack Doohan with Franco Colapinto for the next five F1 races.

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Racing driver who won many endurance races, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but only one grand prix, at Barcelona in 1975

The German racing driver Jochen Mass, who has died aged 78, won only one of the 104 grands prix in which he competed between 1974 and 1982, but he was known as a talented and reliable competitor, a useful number two to such champions as Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt, as well as being a winner of many endurance races in sports cars, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

His sole victory in a world championship Formula 1 race came in tragic circumstances. In 1975, after joining the McLaren team for his second season in the top tier, he had taken the lead of the Spanish Grand Prix on the fast and spectacular Montjuïc Park circuit in Barcelona when the race was halted after an accident.

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Max Verstappen produced a stunning flying lap to secure his second consecutive pole at the Miami GP

There was rain a bit earlier, which doesn’t sound very Miami, but there it is. This being a street circuit there is of course a fair chance of red flags during qualifying if anyone comes a cropper on a hot lap.

Those helpful explanatory words courtesy of the official F1 website, just if anyone wanted to know how qualifying actually works. Which, I am not going to lie to you here, I did.

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• Mohammed ben Sulayem suggests rule ‘improvements’
• F1 drivers raised concerns over fines and free speech

The standoff between drivers and the president of Formula One’s governing body over the contentious issue of swearing may have taken a step towards resolution.

Ahead of this week’s Miami Grand Prix, the FIA’s Mohammed ben Sulayem posted on Instagram that after “constructive feedback” from drivers across the world of motorsport he is considering making “improvements” to the document which lays out the punishments for a range of offences ranging from physical violence to political statements and swearing.

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