The Sunday Times Sport - UK (2021-11-14)

2GS The Sunday Times November 14, 2021 9

Formula One

I am 12 years old and

I am writing to you

about a printing error

I found in last week’s

Sunday Times Sport.

On the page with the

player ratings for the

Manchester derby,

the picture for Ilkay

Gundogan showed

Kevin De Bruyne, the

picture for Bernardo

Silva showed Ilkay

Gundogan and the

picture for Kevin De

Bruyne showed

Bernardo Silva.

Eoin Wilcox, via email

Editor’s note:

Apologies to Eoin

and to all readers for

this error.

Whether Cristiano

Ronaldo chose the

wrong Manchester

club is open to

conjecture (Sport,

November 7). But in

signing Ronaldo as a

quick-fix solution,

Manchester United put

short-term gain over

long-term progress.

Stan Labovitch,

Windsor

Given the moral panic

over Gary Ballance’s

crass and tasteless

banter, I found David

Walsh’s ambiguous

article on the Saudi

golf tournament

surprising. Are we to

suppose that these

hard done by golfers

should cosy up to an

egregious regime?

As far as I’m aware

Ballance has never

actually murdered

anyone, nor

committed crimes

comparable with those

of the regime.

Dave Lees, Swansea

I really enjoy The Ruck

podcast, and I like the

“God or goddess of the

week”, but with the

increasing interest in

women’s rugby, can

you make it “God AND

goddess of the week”?

Simon Percival,

via email

Jonny Owen states “as

you get older you

become much less

partisan”. Having just

turned 62 I’m curious

to know when I can

expect this to happen.

Mark Syder

(Evertonian!), Prescot

LETTERS TO

THE EDITOR

Send your letters to:

The Sports Editor,

The Sunday Times,

1 London Bridge St

London, SE1 9GF

email: sportletters

@sunday-times.co.uk

$25 million (about £18.5 million) a

year. He joked about the size of the

fine afterwards.

“It’s quite a big fine,” the 24-year-

old said, “so I hope they have a nice

dinner and a lot of wine. I hope good,

expensive wine, that would be nice.

They can invite me for dinner as well —

I’ll pay for that dinner too.”

Hamilton’s demotion had promoted

Verstappen to the front of the grid for

the sprint, with Bottas in second.

The Finn started on the faster,

soft tyre, which made all the differ-

ence off the line as he was able to jump

the Red Bull to take the lead into turn

one.

Verstappen was never able to

launch a serious attack and Bottas

claimed the chequered flag and the

three points for victory. Third-placed

Hamilton will

start the Brazil

Grand Prix in

tenth. He finished

the sprint in fifth

but must take a

five-place grid

penalty

LARS BARON/GETTY IMAGES

HAMILTON BATTLES BACK

L

ewis Hamilton has kept alive

his championship fight

against Max Verstappen after

a sublime drive in the sprint in

Brazil worthy of a seven-times

world champion.

The Mercedes driver had

qualified quickest and was

due to start at the front for the third

and final sprint of the season, but after

the stewards deemed his rear wing in

breach of regulations he was demoted

to the back of the grid.

It was a huge blow for the 36-year-

old but he was not content to accept

that his fight for an eighth title would

finish at the same track at which he

won his first.

In only 24 laps of the fourth short-

est on the calendar, Hamilton made

up a staggering 15 places to finish fifth.

“F*** them all,” Toto Wolff, the Mer-

cedes team principal, shouted in

delight over the radio to Hamilton

after his drive. “Copy,” Hamilton

replied. “It’s not over yet.”

Afterwards Hamilton revealed that

the penalty had motivated him during

the sprint.

“Of course, just before I heard

about the result, and it was devastat-

ing, but you can’t let that hold you

back,” he said. “You’ve got to keep

your head down and keep going so I

quickly reset, got my mind focused on

what I could do.”

In what could have been an awful

weekend for Mercedes, who have only

a two-point cushion over Red Bull in

the constructors’ championship, they

walked away yesterday the happier of

the two top teams after Valtteri Bot-

tas, Hamilton’s team-mate, beat

Verstappen to win the sprint.

Verstappen finished second, pick-

ing up two points, to extend his lead in

the drivers’ championship over

Hamilton to 21 points.

Hamilton will serve a five-place grid

penalty in the Grand Prix after Mer-

cedes fitted a new engine to his car

that was above the allocated amount

for a season. But such was the bril-

liance of his drive yesterday, he will

start the race tenth on the grid.

Such a dominant performance over

yesterday’s shorter-distance race — a

third of the grand prix’s length —

suggests that Hamilton, with a fresh

engine, is capable of winning the

race.

Verstappen also found himself in

trouble with the stewards after he was

seen touching Hamilton’s Mercedes

after qualifying. The Dutchman was

fined €50,000 (about £43,000), a

punitive sum for a man who earns

SPRINT RACE RESULT

GRID FOR MAIN RACE

Drivers Team Pts

1 Max Verstappen (Neth) Red Bull 314.

2 Lewis Hamilton (GB) Mercedes 293.

3 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Mercedes 188

4 Sergio Pérez (Mex) Red Bull 165

5 Lando Norris (GB) McLaren 150

6 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari 138

Constructors’ championship

1 Mercedes 481.

2 Red Bull 479.

3 Ferrari 269.

4 McLaren 255

5 Alpine 106

Driver Team Time

1 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Mercedes 29:09.

2 Max Verstappen (Neth) Red Bull at 1.170sec

3 Carlos Sainz (Sp) Ferrari 18.

4 Sergio Pérez (Mex) Red Bull 19.

5 Lando Norris (GB) McLaren 22.

6 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari 25.

7 Pierre Gasly (Fr) AlphaTauri 34.

8 Esteban Ocon (Fr) Alpine 34.

9 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Aston Martin 34.

10 *Lewis Hamilton (GB) Mercedes 20.

11 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) McLaren 35.

12 Fernando Alonso (Sp) Alpine 36.

13 Antonio Giovinazzi (It) Alfa Romeo 41.

14 Lance Stroll (Can) Aston Martin 44.

15 Yuki Tsunoda (Japan) AlphaTauri 46.

16 Nicholas Latifi (Can) Williams 46.

17 George Russell (GB) Williams 47.

18 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Alfa Romeo 50.

19 Mick Schumacher (Ger) Haas 1:01.

20 Nikita Mazepin (Russ) Haas 1:07.

* five-place grid penalty for engine component change

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS

REBECCA

CLANCY

Carlos Sainz, of Ferrari, claimed one

final point.

It is understood that Red Bull had

referred the wing issue to the FIA in

what is almost turning into a bigger

battle off the track than on it.

Christian Horner, the Red Bull team

principal, said they had suspicions

about Mercedes’s rear wing all season

and that questions remained over it.

“Lewis’s straight-line speed is just

mind-boggling,” Horner said. “Some-

thing must happen because physics

doesn’t allow the kind of horsepower

delta that you would need to achieve,

that would be pretty significant. So

we’re obviously trying to understand

what it is and go from there.”

He added: “It’s down to the FIA to

police, the rules are quite concise.

“So it’s something that we’re going

to keep an eye on because, particu-

larly with Lewis today [yesterday],

that was just a different league. I think

he was 27 kilometres an hour faster

than Lando [Norris, of McLaren]

when he passed him, which is another

formula but it’s a great drive from

him.”

If Verstappen scores at least five

points more than Hamilton in Brazil,

the 24-year-old will be able to finish

second behind the seven-times cham-

pion at all three remaining races —

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi —

and still win his first world title.

With four races left in what has

been a long but enthralling

season, Sao Paulo offered up perhaps

the most dramatic of 24 hours in the

paddock.

And the drama is clearly not over.

‘Lewis’s straight-

line speed is just

mind-boggling.

We’re obviously

trying to

understand it’