Sebastian Vettel stormed to victory at the Malaysian Grand Prix Sunday, leading home a Red Bull one-two ahead of Mark Webber with Nico Rosberg completing the podium for Mercedes.

It was third time lucky for the German after mechanical failures robbed him of victory in the opening two races of the season but once he had sped past Rosberg and pole-sitter Webber to lead through the first corner, victory was never in doubt.

“It was a very good result for us especially after two races where we didn’t finish where we wanted to be,” Vettel told reporters after celebrating his sixth career win.

It was Red Bull’s first one-two since Abu Dhabi at the end of last season.

Renault’s Robert Kubica followed up last week’s second place in Melbourne with another strong showing in fourth, ahead of Adrian Sutil’s Force India. The German held off McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, who was sixth, for the second half of the race.

The McLarens and Ferraris started on the back four rows of the grid after misjudging the conditions in qualifying on Saturday but Hamilton made light of starting in 20th place by surging into the points by the end of the fourth lap.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa followed Hamilton through the field to take seventh place from 21st on the grid and move into the lead in the championship after team mate Fernando Alonso failed to finish.

Massa has 39 points, Alonso and Vettel 37 with McLaren’s world champion Jenson Button on 35.

Button crossed the line eighth after a stirring battle with Alonso until the Spaniard retired on the penultimate lap, smoke billowing out of the rear of his Ferrari.

Toro Rosso’s young Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari finished ninth ahead of Williams’ rookie Nico Hulkenburg, the pair both earning their first points in Formula One.

Vettel got off to a flying start and stormed into the lead by the first corner and held off Webber on the second and third as the pair enjoyed an evident speed advantage to pull away from Rosberg in the first half of the race.

Webber’s hopes of passing his team mate with a faster pit stop were dashed when his mechanics struggled to remove his front right wheel.

“The second stint was extremely long and its extremely hot here so I didn’t stop sweating,” said Vettel, who had started on pole in Bahrain and Australia.

“At some stage I was hoping for rain just to get a bit of a cool down so yeah, what a day. Today, fortunately it stayed dry and we had a magnificent car… the key was to pace yourself.”

Webber rued a wheel spin at the start of the grand prix that allowed his team mate past but was delighted for the team after two frustrating race weekends in a row.

“First and second is sensational. It has been a tough few races where clearly we didn’t finish where we should, so coming to the weekend, you will take this kind of result.” the Australian said.

“I would like to be one step further up, but we executed a perfect weekend.”

Further down the order, Hamilton was leading the faster cars through the field like a hot knife through butter and his charge was only halted when he ran into a stubborn Sutil, who matched the McLaren for pace on Sepang’s long straights.

“The pace was great and was able to stay out for very long, I nearly got Vettel when he came out for his pitstop but overall I’m well happy with that,” Hamilton said.

“I could not ask for any more, 20th to sixth. I really think the team deserved it and we are closer now in the constructors’ championship.”

Button opted to pit early, as he had in his Melbourne victory, but this time he was struggling to keep Alonso behind him in the closing stages.

Seven times world champion Michael Schumacher continued to endure a frustrating run of results on his return to Formula One after three years in retirement, the German parking up his Mercedes on lap 10 to remain stuck on nine championship points.

Source : John O’Brien, Reuters

Technorati Tags: Adrian Sutil, Felipe Massa, fernando alonso, Ferrari, Force India, formula one, Jaime Alguersuari, jenson button, Lewis Hamilton, Lotus, malaysian grand prix, Mark Webber, McLaren, Mercedes, Michael Schumacher, Nico Hulkenburg, Nico Rosberg, Red Bull, renault, Robert Kubica, Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso, Williams

Reckless and dangerous riding by ‘Hell Riders’ or “Mat Rempits” caused two promising national middle distance runners, Amran Raj and Mathialagan Subramaniam, to be hospitalised after they were involved in a road accident yesterday.

Malaysia Amateur Athletics Union (MAAU) deputy president Karim Ibrahim disclosed that Amran, who is one of the country’s top 4×400 metres runner and Mathialagan Subramaniam, a national junior 800 metres runner, were involved in the accident in front of Bukit Jalil LRT Station near here at 4.30pm.

He said the duo were in a Perodua Kelisa car driven by a national footballer and were on their way to Sri Petaling for afternoon tea when the incident happened.

Karim said according to Amran’s account when he visited him at the Serdang Hospital, the accident happened after the driver lost control of his car when several Mat Rempit overtook them recklessly and dangerously, causing the driver to knock into the back of another car before it ran over the road dividers and crashed into a tree on the opposite side nearby LRT station.

“Both cars were badly damaged. All three in the Kelisa were admitted to Serdang Hospital but Mathialagan was discharged later as his injuries were not serious,” he said.

Amran who suffered a fractured right leg was later transferred to the Damansara Specialist Centre for an operation, he said, adding that the footballer was still receiving treatment at the Serdang Hospital.

Amran was a member of the 4x400m team which won the gold medal at the 2007 Korat SEA Games.

Yesterday, the chief coach of the national athletics contingent Hanapiah Nasir sustained injuries in a motorcycle accident while on sightseeing trip at Genting Highlands.

He suffered internal haemorrhage as a result of four ribs being fractured in the accident and is likely to be out of action for about a month as a result.

Source : Bernama

Technorati Tags: accident, hell riders, hospitalised, mat rempit, motorcycle

Jenson Button in a Brawn won a chaotic Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday for a second straight victory after the race was abandoned when a ferocious storm lashed the Sepang circuit.

Nick Heidfeld in his BMW Sauber came second, benefiting from pitting only once to Button’s four times in a race that became a lottery. Timo Glock in a Toyota was third.

It was finally halted after 32 laps as rain pelted down, lightning flashed around the circuit and visibility deteriorated, the first time since Brazil in 2003 that a race has been called off due to weather.

Formula One supremos must take some of the blame after pushing for a 5:00 pm start instead of its regular 3:00 pm slot to satisfy European television audiences.

With tropical Malaysia routinely getting wild storms, it was clear that if one hit during the 56-lap race they would have trouble finishing with daylight disappearing.

Toyota’s Jarno Trulli came fourth, Rubens Barrichello in the other Brawn was fifth and Mark Webber in the Red Bull was sixth.

Troubled world champion Lewis Hamilton came seventh in his McLaren with Nico Rosberg filling out the top eight.

However, the drivers and constructors only get half the usual number of points with the race halted at less than three-quarter distance — only the fifth time this has happened.

“Wow, what a crazy race, it had everything but was very enjoyable,” said Britain’s Button, who had never driven the Brawn before in the wet.

“They were really bad conditions. I started badly, there was a lot of oversteer, but the pace was good.

“Choosing the right tyres was very difficult. It wasn’t like it was a river out there, it was a lake.”

Heidfeld was overjoyed to come second after starting 10th, making the right tyre choices at the right time.

“I couldn’t have wished for more. It was very difficult conditions but the team made the right tyre choices,” said the German.

Compatriot Glock was happy to finish in one piece.

“It was impossible to drive like that and it was the right thing to stop the race,” he said.

His comments were echoed by Hamilton who said the conditions were the worst he had experienced.

“When the rain came down, it was impossible to drive. I was aquaplaning everywhere — these were the most dangerous conditions I’ve ever raced in,” he said.

“I love it when it rains, but this was just too much.”

With black clouds looming, the race got off to a sensational start with pole-sitter Button half asleep as the lights turned green.

The Briton, who won last week in Melbourne, went to the first corner in fourth behind Rosberg, Trulli and Fernando Alonso.

Undeterred, Button soon woke up and sped past Alonso and by lap eight the top four had a 13-second gap on the fifth-placed Spaniard, clearly benefiting from their controversial rear diffusers.

Only Williams, Toyota and Brawn have them fitted and they have been the subject of protests by BMW Sauber, Ferrari, Renault, Red Bull who claim they are contrary to the rules, generating more downforce.

Leader Rosberg made his first pit stop on lap 15 and came out fourth. Trulli followed a lap later, along with Button and Barrichello.

They all selected slick tyres despite the threat of rain and when the dust settled Button was leading.

It was a bad call as it started spitting minutes later and they were forced back in to get their wets.

Button returned firing, pulling 18 seconds clear of Rosberg by lap 27 but Glock, running on intermediate tyres, was clocking four seconds faster and rapidly making inroads.

The leaders soon realised that’s what they needed too and all went into the pits again but as soon as they came out it started pouring, so back in most went.

As the conditions worsened, the safety car was deployed and the red flag was raised with the race officially abandoned 50 minutes after it was stopped.

Source : AFP

Technorati Tags: f1, formula one, jenson button, malaysian grand prix

World number one shuttler, Datuk Lee Chong Wei and national swimmer Sow Yi Ting were selected as the Male Olympian and Female Olympian 2008 respectively at the Olympian Night held at Wisma OCM, here tonight.

Chong Wei, 26, was selected based on his achievement as the only Malaysian athlete to win a medal at the Beijing Olympic Games in August.

The Bukit Mertajam-born athlete won the silver medal in the men’s singles after losing to China’s Lin Dan in the badminton final at the 2008 Olympics.

The silver medal was the second won by Malaysian athletes at the Olympic Games with the first silver won by the badminton doubles pair of Cheah Soon Kit-Yap Kim Hock at the Atlanta Olympic Games, United States in 1996.

This was the first Olympian award for Chong Wei who was the sole nominee in his category.

Chong Wei was not present to receive the award as he was in Alor Star, Kedah chasing a record seventh consecutive title in the National Badminton Grand Prix. He was represented by his brother-in-law, Tung Tok Seng.

Meanwhile, Yi Ting was selected for the award for having broken the national record, clocking 2 minutes 23.71 seconds in the qualifying rounds for the 200m breast stroke in Beijing, which placed her in 19th position overall in the event. Her previous record was 2 minutes 27.80 seconds.

The 24-year-old swimmer beat two other nominees, namely taekwando exponent Che Chew Chan who qualified for the quarterfinals in the women’s above 67kg category, and women’s shuttler Wong Mew Chew who qualified for the women’s singles quarterfinals in Beijing.

Yi Ting was also not present for the award as she was attending to her studies in Arkansas, United States. She was represented by her father, Siow Kian Wah.

Both the award winners received a trophy and RM10,000 cash each from Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tunku Imran Tuanku Jaafar.

Source : Bernama

Technorati Tags: lee chong wei, olympian award, shuttler, swimmer, yi ting

Spain’s Fernando Alonso snapped a year-long win drought to take the Singapore Grand Prix Sunday, winning a drama-filled first ever night race as a comical error cost Felipe Massa dearly.

It was the Renault driver’s first victory since the Italian Grand Prix last year and capped a remarkable weekend that saw him top two of the free practice sessions but start 15th on the grid after a mechanical problem in qualifying.

He claimed his 20th career triumph by 2.95 seconds over Germany’s Nico Rosberg in a Williams and Britain’s world championship leader Lewis Hamilton in third.

Toyota driver Timo Glock was fourth with Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel following up his win in Italy this month with fifth. BMW Sauber‘s Nick Heidfeld took sixth.

“It is fantastic, I am extremely happy. I can’t believe it right now and it will take a few days to realise what we have done,” said Alonso.

“Winning had seemed impossible all season but we have been competitive all weekend. The car was super.”

The race was a new experience for every driver on a street circuit under powerful spotlights and it turned out to be one of the most exciting of the season.

Despite dark clouds lurking, Singapore’s notorious tropical downpours stayed away and the whole race was run in dry, but hot and humid conditions.

Rosberg scored his best ever finish and was over the moon.

“The car felt pretty good and we knew we could be strong on this track and for once the luck went with us,” he said.

Similarly, Hamilton was happy to get points while Massa didn’t.

“I enjoyed driving here and I’m pretty happy,” he said. “It was a tough weekend but we got some good points.”

Ferrari’s Massa started from pole but a disastrous mistake cost him the race and valuable points in his push for the world title.

His 13th place finish means he is now seven points behind Hamilton in the championship hunt with just three Grand Prix left at Japan, China and Brazil.

The Brazilian was in the pits on lap 15 when he was given the green light and drove off with the fuel hose still attached to his car, leaving one of the pit crew floored and subsequently carted off in a neck brace.

Massa ended up sitting in his Ferrari at the end of the pit lane as the crew ran after him and managed to pull the hose free, but it ruined his chances. He was given a drive through penalty and rejoined in 18th place.

It was a miserable night for Ferrari with defending world champion Kimi Raikkonen ramming his car into the barriers with just four laps left.

The Massa drama occurred after the cars came in when Nelson Piquet careered into the wall, causing massive damage to his Renault.

He climbed out unscathed but the safety car was deployed.

Massa was leading at the time with Hamilton second but at the restart, Rosberg was in front and Alonso fifth.

But Rosberg was subsequently slapped with a 10-second stop penalty for coming into the pits before it had opened after the Piquet crash.

The complicated scenario saw Toyota’s Jarno Trulli in the lead on lap 28 but without having pitted with Alonso second, Rosberg third and Hamilton charging in sixth.

With Trulli taking his first pit stop soon after Alonso amazingly found himself in front just after the halfway mark with a 4.9 second lead over Rosberg.

Alonso came in for his second pit stop on lap 41 and came out still ahead, marginally ahead of David Coulthard and Hamilton.

Remarkably, when Coulthard pitted soon after, he too drove off with the fuel pipe attached, knocking over a mechanic who was stretchered off with an injured ankle.

There was more action to come.

Alonso was cruising with a 23 second lead when Adrian Sutil shunted his Force India into the wall, bringing the safety car out again and wiping out the Spaniard’s advantage.

When they restarted with seven laps left it was a sprint to the finish and two-time world champion Alonso made no mistake, writing his name in the record books as the first winner of a Formula One night race.

Source: AFP

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Technorati Tags: fernando alonso, formula one, night race, renault, singapore gp, Sports

Malaysian shuttler Lee Chong Wei was hailed as a national hero Monday despite his bitterly disappointing finals loss to China‘s Lin Dan, which deprived the nation of its first Olympic gold. The silver medal was Malaysia‘s best result in 12 years at the Olympics and the best achievement by a singles player.

Malaysians followed Lee’s progress at the Beijing Olympics with enthusiasm, hoping he could break a drought for the country, which had not won an Olympic medal since 1996 and has never claimed gold. Since Malaysia started taking part in the Olympics in 1956 at Melbourne, it has won two silver medals, including Chong Wei’s, and two bronze — all from badminton.

An erratic and strangely subdued Lee Chong Wei crashed out 12-21, 8-21 to China’s Lin Dan in one of the most one-sided contest for the men’s singles Olympic badminton gold.

The top-seeded Lin was in control from the outset and coasted over the second-seeded Malaysian to give China its third gold medal in badminton.

Lin took an 11-1 lead in the second game with Lee’s only point coming on an unforced error by Lin.

Chong Wei, though, is virtually certain to end up as the most successful Malaysian participant in the Beijing Olympiad with the loser’s consolation of a silver medal.

“Chong Wei gave his best but China’s Lin Dan performed extraordinarily to deny us,” Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Ismail Sabri Yaakob told the state Bernama news agency.

“Chong Wei will still be considered a hero because he has contributed a silver to the country and at the same time ended a 12-year wait as Malaysia had not won a single medal since the 1996 edition,” he said from Beijing.

The world’s number-two player was contrite and offered no excuses for losing the highly anticipated match.

“I feel so sorry for the loss. I hope they (the fans) don’t blame me and I can continue my badminton career and come to the Olympics again,” he said.

His father, Lee Ah Chai, who watched the match at home along with a large media contingent, said his son had clearly been under pressure.

“I hope the people of Malaysia are not angry and disappointed because Chong Wei has tried his level best,” he said according to Bernama.

“I am not disappointed because has made it to the final and done his best,” he said.

Under a government incentive scheme, Lee will win 300,000 ringgit (90,000 dollars) for his silver medal, as well as a 3,000 ringgit monthly pension.

Lee Chong Wei returned home today with a heavy heart after his failure to nail the first gold medal for Malaysia in the Olympics.

But getting a hero’s welcome at the Kuala Lumpur International Aiport (KLIA) brought back the smile on his face. About 300 people with huge congratulatory banners greeted Chong Wei and the Malaysian badminton team at the arrival hall to the beat of the kompang and thunderous applause.

Source: AFP, Bernama, The Star

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Technorati Tags: badminton, beijing, lee chong mei, olympic, silver medal

Michael Phelps became the greatest Olympian of all time Wednesday winning two gold medals in the space of an hour to lift his career total to an unprecedented 11 on his charge to Olympic immortality.

As world records continued to tumble in the pool, Phelps passed the halfway point in his drive to be the first person to win eight golds at one Games when he blitzed the 200m butterfly final and led the US 4×200 freestyle relay team.

The champion American has now won five gold medals in Beijing, all of them in world record time, to go with the six he won in Athens.

In a stunning performance in the butterfly final, Phelps was barely able to see as his goggles filled with water.

“It just kept getting worse and worse through the race and I was having trouble seeing the walls to be honest. I wanted to go 1:51 or better but for the circumstances I guess it’s not too bad.”

Phelps had to settle for 1min 52.03sec, just 0.06sec under than the previous record he set last year, while his relay team slashed 4.48sec off their record setting a new time of 6:58.56.

No other athlete has won more than nine career gold medals in the history of the Olympics, and Phelps’ is confident of meeting his next target of beating Mark Spitz’s record of seven golds in one Games.

“From now on it’s just a downward slope. The end is close, I love it,” he said with the 200m individual medley, 100m butterfly and 4x100m medley relay to come.

Six world records were broken at the pool Wednesday with the 100m freestyle record broken twice in successive semi-finals by Frenchman Alain Bernard and his Australian rival Eamon Sullivan.

Source: AFP

Technorati Tags: beijing, gold medal, micheal phelps, olympic, swimming

Daniel Bego broke his own national 200m freestyle record in the Olympic heats tonight, clocking 1:50.92s to better his previous mark of 1:51.05s at the national ‘Water Cube’ aquatics centre.

He finished sixth out of seven in the race which was dominated by American swimmer Michael Phelps.

Daniel, who is from Sarawak, holds two other national marks for the 100m butterfly and the 200m butterfly, his remaining events in his Olympics debut.

He is down to race in the 200m butterfly tomorrow night with hopes of making the semi-finals. He has a best of 1:59.40s.

In the women’s 400m freestyle, Khoo Cai Lin faded out, finishing sixth in her heat in 4:23.37s, off her season best of 4:18.20s.

She still has one more event, the 800m freestyle.

Technorati Tags: beijing, daniel bego, freestyle, national record, olympic, swimming

Kuala Lumpur was 13th of the 51 cities to be visited by the Olympic torch on its way to Beijing. The final 31 of these venues are all in China, on the torch’s domestic tour of this year’s Olympic Games host country. This should rekindle the Olympic flame into a semblance of glory by the time it gets to its final destination, after an acrimonious world tour during which this symbol of universal amity in sport was subjected to indignities from protesters expressing solidarity with the people of Tibet.

The Malaysian leg of the Olympic Torch Relay went on relatively smoothly yesterday, except for four people, including a family of three, who were detained briefly for displaying pro-Tibet sentiments. Those detained were a Japanese couple in their 30s and their 5-year-old son and an English woman in her 40s. They were released after being questioned by the police for several hours.

The event began at 2.25pm at Dataran Merdeka after the Olympic torch, brought by Beijing Olympic Games organising committee deputy president Jiang Xiaoyu, was lighted.

There are 80 torchbearers with Olympic Council Malaysia president Tan Sri Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja’afar was the first runner, followed by former OCM president Tan Sri Hamzah Abu Samah.

Chinese ambassador to Malaysia Cheng Yonghua was the second last runner. Cheng passed the torch to the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah. Sultan Azlan Shah was the final torchbearer and he lighted up the cauldron at the Esplanade area in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). The flame from the cauldron is transferred to a canister and taken to Jakarta for the next leg.

Other notable runners included AirAsia Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Tony Fernandes, badminton stars Rashid Sidek, Cheah Soon Kit, Yap Kim Hock, Razif Sidek and Jailani Sidek, squash champion Nicol David, NGO activist Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, astronaut Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Sheikh Mustapha and AmBank Group chairman Tan Sri Azman Hashim.

Some of the Beijing-bound athletes also took part as torchbearers and it was the perfect tonic before they compete in the biggest sporting event on earth in August. Among them were shuttler Lee Chong Wei and diver Bryan Nickson Lomas.

Malaysia last hosted a leg of the Olympic Torch Relay when Japan became the first Asian country to host the biggest sporting event in the world in 1964.

Photos from The Star Photo Gallery

Technorati Tags: beijing, china, malaysia, olympic, torch relay, torchbearer