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Scuderia Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto says the Italian outfit is in the process of working on new concepts for its 2019 car to help the team bridge the gap with Mercedes.

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Singled out as the clear favourite at the start of the year, Ferrari has failed to live up to expectations, performing occasionally on a par with its German rival but unable to consistently challenge the latter’s supremacy on race day.

After last week’s in-season test in Barcelona, Binotto underlined the crucial role played by this year’s Pirelli tyres, a recurring theme up and down the grid this season.

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“Last week’s testing in Barcelona and analyses carried out in Maranello confirmed just how much this year’s tyres, which are very different to those we had in 2018, require different mechanical and aerodynamic settings to work properly,” said the Swiss.

“We are already working in Maranello on evaluating new concepts, as well as bringing some initial further updates here.

“This Grand Prix is celebrating its 90th anniversary, as indeed is the Scuderia, which makes this weekend even more special.

“It’s a very different sort of race, where the track characteristics that can shake up the order could be jumbled up still further this weekend.

“As usual, qualifying will be very important because of the fact it’s almost impossible to overtake.

“Of course, Monaco is Charles’ home race and we know how much it means to him. It means a lot to us too.”

During his Monaco Grand Prix preview, Binotto also expressed the sadness felt by the Scuderia following the passing Niki Lauda, of one of its greatest past representatives

“The run up to this Monaco Grand Prix has been perturbed by our sadness at the news of Niki’s death,” said Binotto.

“His straightforward no nonsense approach will be missed in Formula 1 and it will seem strange for all of us not seeing him in the paddock.

“Niki was a standard bearer for Ferrari and for Formula 1 and he pushed through changes in motor racing that made it even more professional, being ahead of his time in terms of being a stickler for detail which is now very much a key element of our sport.”

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While he’s racing against Charles Leclerc in F1 for the first time this year, Alex Albon is no stranger to the Ferrari driver’s talent, having battled with the Monegasque for several years in motorsport’s junior ranks.

Albon and Leclerc were contenders in the European F3 Championship in 2015, before they fought each other in GP3 a year later when the British-Thai racer finished runner up to his rival in the series.

In 2017, they followed each other up the ladder into F2 where Leclerc secured another title while Albon finished tenth.

    Leclerc: ‘I will do anything to change the hierarchy at Ferrari’

Their paths separated thereafter as F1 beckoned for Leclerc but thanks to his lucky break this year with Toro Rosso, Albon sits once again on the same grid as his former junior rival, and is better placed than many to judge the Scuderia charger.

“I’ve know him since karting,” Albon told Motorsport-Total.

The Toro Rosso rookie singled out Leclerc’s outstanding ability to “feel the grip” as his greatest strength.

“Charles feels the grip very fast, even when it rains,” said Albon who underlined how “immediately” on the pace Leclerc usually is on race weekends and how much speed he carries through the corners.

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“He has no weakness in slow, medium and fast corners,” added the 23-year-old who isn’t surprised by Leclerc’s ascendency against his Ferrari team mate Sebastian Vettel.

“If you’re faster than him, it’ll be by two or three hundredths at the most, you will not get more,” contends Albon.

However, for all the hype and promise, Albon insists his former karting, GP3 and F2 rival hasn’t changed since their formative years in the sport.

“If you hit him up in the paddock, he’s still the same guy: modest, very ambitious and very talented.”

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Daniil Kvyat’s Friday practice ended rather embarrassingly with a hefty impact into the wall late in FP2. But the young Russian had been looking undeniably fast, and he was able to carry that pace into Saturday’s qualifying session – and happily without the mishap.

“It gives you great satisfaction to put in a good lap,” said the Toro Rosso driver. “Especially at a track like this as it’s a circuit for brave drivers!

“I brushed the wall on one of my laps, but you need to have big balls around this track to get the best time.”

  • Bottas beats Hamilton to Baku pole after Leclerc crashes

Kvyat’s bravery was enough to put him through to the final top ten pole shoot-out round, where he picked up a sixth place starting position for tomorrow’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

That’s the 25-year-old’s best grid place since the 2016 European Grand Prix – the first Formula 1 event to be staged on the Baku City Circuit. It’s also the first time since his return to F1 that he’s made it through to Q3, having narrowly missed out by one place in Shanghai.

“It was a good Qualifying, I had a great lap in Q3,” he said. “Conditions were not ideal for anyone because we missed out on track time yesterday, but I generally don’t need a lot of laps to find good pace.”

Having scored a single point in the season opener in Melbourne, Kvyat is keenly aware that his starting position in Baku gives him his best chance of netting some serious points since his return to F1 at the start of 2019 after a season on the sidelines.

“Tomorrow’s a long race and we’ll try and put everything together,” he pointed out. “I think we have a chance for a strong result. The race can be very unpredictable, so I’ll keep a cool head and do the best job I can.”

Kvyat’s team mate, rookie driver Alex Albon, missed out on joining him in Q3 and will start three rows back in 12th place, following a ten-place grid penalty for Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi.

“It was a bit of a frustrating end to qualifying, we had the pace for Q3 the whole weekend, just not when it mattered,” rued Albon.

“I was struggling with the tyre temperatures and trying to get them in the right range, especially after the big temperature drop near the end of the session.

“Maybe I didn’t get the warm up lap right, because I struggled for confidence when the track was cold and the car started to slide around a bit.

“Tomorrow’s a new day and anything can happen here, we’ve seen how chaotic it can be so it’s all to play for.”

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Carlos Sainz believes McLaren was only denied a shot at the podium in the German Grand Prix by its rivals’ risky strategies unfolding in their favour.

Sainz was the only driver among the top ten to have only stopped three times in Sunday’s chaotic race, with McLaren opting for a cautious approach in terms of strategy, contrary to Toro Rosso and Racing Point which were the first to switch Daniil Kvyat and Lance Stroll to the dry soft compound tyre under a third Safety Car regime that took place some 20 laps from the end.

That decision gave both drivers an edge compared to Sainz who resorted to a used set of softs for his third and final stint.

“Every decision that we do probably was the right one,” said Sainz.

“In the end we lost out on a podium because of two cars with nothing to lose.

    Verstappen victorious after wild, wet and wacky German GP

“They pitted for slicks and benefited from that. When you don’t see the Mercedes, Red Bull or Ferrari pitting you say, we are P5 we are crazy if we pit now and we miss this.

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“We were very close to pitting and that would’ve given us a podium place but in the end it was wise that we didn’t but the others benefited from the risky decision.”

Earlier in the race, Sainz had spun off the track at Hockenheim’s treacherous Turn 16 but avoided a contact with barriers.

But the mishap, repeated by several other drivers over the course of the afternoon, did set back the Spaniard who was forced to battle his back up the field.

“Honestly today, I was not really comfortable with the conditions,” Sainz added.

“We were running a smaller rear ring than the rest of our competitors and we struggled to warm up our tyres. When you got into a rhythm it was fine but just the restarts we struggled.

“That spin cost me, but in the end we were the only car not to pit for slicks halfway through the race as it started to rain again, so it was a good call that gave us back the position.”

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Max Verstappen dismissed Red Bull exit rumors fueled by his father on Twitter recently, insisting that when it comes to his future, he’s the one in the driver’s seat.

Last week, Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko expressed his fears that Verstappen could walk away from the Milton Keynes-based outfit if it can’t consistently fight at the front of the field.

And Jos Verstappen retweeted the article which quoted Marko, leading credence to the possibility his son could call it a day with Red Bull and Honda.

However, the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing charger dismissed the third-party talk.

    F1i’s Driver Ratings for the 2019 Canadian GP

“There were a bit more things said in the article… I’m the driver, not my dad,” said Verstappen

“I always said I’m enjoying myself. Of course, we all know that we need to do better but I believe in the project that we are in with Honda.

“We are just working hard now to step up the performance and we will see in the upcoming races where we will be.

“If you get a bit more power, balance in the car, then it looks a bit different.”

Ahead of last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, in which he finished fifth, Verstappen was asked how long he would remain committed to Red Bull in its current winless state.

“I’m not even thinking about that,” said the Dutchman.

“At the end of the day it’s not easy, as you see with Ferrari as well, to close the gap.

“Mercedes is at the moment just doing a very good job but I feel very good in the team and it feels like the place to be at the moment. I’m not even thinking about those things.

“I feel good within the team as well I feel very relaxed and I think that also helps.

“You spend a lot of time with each other already over the years so you get to know each other better. Communication is going very well and I’m having a good time.

“We are working hard to improve, we know that we have to improve.

“I think that’s not a secret but we also knew that from the beginning of the year, so it is not like a big shock what is happening now.”

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Kubica feels vindicated after Monaco physical trial

November 15, 2019 | News | No Comments

Robert Kubica knew that in Monaco he would be under scrutiny from those who doubted his ability to merely compete on the challenging street circuit, but the Pole believes he acquitted himself well in the Principality.

Kubica’s 2011 rally crash has left him with a physically impaired right hand, and while the Williams driver has found an efficient way to deal with his limitations on most tracks, Monaco’s tight and twisty layout was seen has major difficulty.

However, as far as the 34-year-old is concerned, he passed his Monegasque test with flying colors.

“I knew I would be fine here,” Kubica said.

“I think overall a lot of people thought I would not even be able to turn the steering wheel.

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“In this not easy situation I think I did pretty well, and I can be happy. Of course the final result could have been better, but that’s how it is with racing.

“People said that Turn 1 would be an issue for me, and I think in all the races I did pretty well in Turn 1, or on the opening lap, when there is a kind of racing instinct.”

Kubica actually enjoyed a strong launch off the grid, overtaking both team mate George Russell and Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi on the opening lap.

A clash with the latter after an optimistic move at Rascasse sent Kubica back to the rear from where it was very difficult for him to recover.

“It’s racing, there’s not a lot you can do in this situation,” said the Pole. “That’s how it is, sometimes.

“I gained two positions at the start, and in the opening laps there is a lot of managing tyres, managing your pace.”

“After the safety car I could keep them behind, but I knew I had to stop.

“There was some possibility for rain, so that’s why I stayed out. The rain showed up, but just slightly, and in this case our strategy didn’t pay off.”

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Joining a chorus of warnings over France’s state of emergency and increase in state powers imposed following the November attacks in Paris, a group of United Nations human rights experts has now said that the measures “impose excessive and disproportionate restrictions on fundamental freedoms.”

Among the concerns mentioned in the United Nations Special Rapporteurs’ joint statement released Tuesday is that the state of emergency—extended until February 26—and new electronic surveillance law have no safeguards of guaranteeing rule of law as there was no prior judicial review.

That state of emergency, as The Intercept reported, “gives prefects, the French government’s local representatives, the ability to place people under house arrest, based merely on the suspicion of the intelligence service that they pose a threat to national security. They can also order police raids targeting any place where they think information about terrorism may be found, without a warrant.” And while it “was initially supposed to mitigate the threat posed by Islamic terrorism, [it] has been used to target environmental and political activists who have nothing to do with radical Islam, let alone terrorism.”

“Ensuring adequate protection against abuse in the use of exceptional measures and surveillance measures in the context of the fight against terrorism is an international obligation of the French State,” the joint statement reads.

“We call on the authorities to revise the provisions and possible reforms adopted to [in the fight against terrorism] to ensure they comply with international human rights law,” the experts, David Kaye, Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression; Maina Kiai, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Ben Emmerson, Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; and Joseph Cannataci, Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, stated.

“While exceptional measures may be required under exceptional circumstances, this does not relieve the authorities from demonstrating that these are applied solely for the purposes for which they were prescribed, and are directly related to the specific objective that inspired them,” they state.

The statement also calls out the recent house arrests of environmental activists, saying the actions “do not seem to adjust to the fundamental principles of necessity and proportionality.”

Also expressing alarm—and taking legal action—on Tuesday regarding the controversial measures is the Paris-based League of Human Rights, which filed a complaint with France’s top administrative court, urging the body to suspend all or part of the state of emerency.

The group cited French Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ own words that the declaration was meant to be “a short term response.” They also stated that such an exceptional declaration “cannot continue in a State of law.”

Among the many civil liberties advocates who have blasted France’s response to the attacks is Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia, who stated in December, “There is a very real risk that the rights of the wider population are getting ensnared in a net supposed to be designed to identify only those posing a genuine threat. Many people are being targeted solely on the basis of their religious practices or vague suspicions.”

“These emergency measures are already proving to be disproportionate. Extending them outside of a state of emergency”—as the president has pushed for—is a dangerous step,” van Gulik stated, adding, “Using the terrorist threat to change the constitution opens the floodgates for emergency-like measures to become the new norm.”

Paris-based rights group La Quadrature du Net also expressed concern in the wake of the state of emergency declaration, stating, “at a time when the government—despite hesitation even within itself—believes that it must react with even more ’emergency laws,’ we fear that the shock waves shaking our society will shove it away from democracy.”

“By preventing a quiet reflection on the wider causes of these heinous crimes, by not making a real assessment of how to combine security actions while protecting fundamental freedoms and our social structure, we will surely sacrifice both our freedom and our security,” the organization stated.

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Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi paid a ‘hairy’ tribute for scoring his maiden championship point, but the young Italian would have likely shaved his head for the chance of scoring a top-ten finish.

Giovinazzi had promised Alfa Romeo team boss Frédéric Vasseur that he could take a pair of scissors to the 25-year-old’s lengthy mane when he scored his first point.

The Frenchman was delighted to oblige following his driver’s spirited effort in Austria which yielded a 10th-place finish right behind teammate Kimi Raikkonen’s own run to P9.

    Austrian GP: Sunday’s action in pictures

Losing a lock of hair was a hard-earned privilege however for Giovinazzi.

“I feel so good, finally,” said the beaming Alfa charger. “This one was also difficult, Perez was behind me all race, gave a lot of pressure.

“I wanted really bad this point and I give 105 percent, and I think it was the maximum we could do, McLaren was just too fast today.

“But yeah, two cars in the points, we need to be really happy, we need to keep working this way and I’m sure it’s the right way, so we just need to keep pushing.”

Raikkonen agreed the double points finish was a good result for his team, but the Finn lamented that his second stint didn’t allow him to challenge his rivals up ahead.

“It’s a balancing act to try to keep the tyres alive long enough and go fast enough,” said the 2007 world champion.

“It’s a bit of a shame, it felt like we had more speed, but obviously not. We still have margin to improve. I feel we were a bit better yesterday, but our performance is improving.”

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Vasseur praised both his drivers for their race and tyre management, insisting also on the Alfa squad’s gradual improvement race after race.

“Both Kimi and Antonio raced intelligently, knowing when to attack and when to look after their tyres, and to have both scoring is a reward for the whole team,” said Vasseur.

“We could have perhaps scored a few more points in the end, when we were catching Sainz with both cars, but in the end we can be satisfied of what we got.

“We have been showing improvement in the last few races, so we will aim to build on that and continue our good run of points.”

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Like Pakistan, like Turkey. If the university massacre outside the old North West Frontier city of Peshawar was a further sign that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is still far from “conquering terrorism”, it is a portent of things to come for Turkey’s far more arrogant President, Recep Tayip Erdogan. For after allowing its borders to be used as a conduit for foreign fighters and smugglers into Syria – just as Pakistan did into Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion of 1979 – Turkey is now experiencing almost as many violent attacks on its people as Pakistan.

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Erdogan’s government has increasingly emphasised its Islamic credentials, just as President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq did in Pakistan in the 1970s. And Turkey now finds that the Isis “caliphate” with which it was prepared to treat – allowing it to control part of Syria’s border with Turkey, facilitating Western Muslims wishing to cross in the opposite direction, permitting oil smugglers to bring their produce from Isis-held territory – is assaulting Ankara and Istanbul.

The powerful Pakistani intelligence forces – the infamous Inter-Services Intelligence – sent weapons to the anti-Soviet mujahedin and afterwards co-operated with the Taliban. Indeed, the Taliban managed to infiltrate the Pakistani military and intelligence institutions; and Isis now appears to have some infiltrators within the Turkish state apparatus. In Pakistan’s case, its war with the Taliban is even more complicated, since its own Islamist enemies appear to have several faces. Thus while one “Taliban” group claimed the mass murder at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, another condemned the attacks as “un-Islamic”.

But like the assault on the school for Pakistani army officers’ children in Peshawar in 2014, which killed more than 140, the slaughter at Charsadda was a massacre of the innocents. It is easy to explain such bloodbaths as a response to the secular education which Islamist groups despise. But in Pakistan’s case, it was almost certainly a response to further military operations against the Taliban. The Bacha Khan University was named after Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the “frontier Ghandi”, and its Sufi-inspired Islam and Ghandian non-violence made it an obvious target for the Taliban.   

David Gosling, who was headmaster of Edwardes College in Peshawar, says that the attacks on education targets “drive a coach and horses” through Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan’s conviction that the government must negotiate with the Taliban. Pakistan’s dilemma, Gosling says, is “aggravated by its legacy of an earlier commitment to the extended cold war and the likelihood of future Taliban gains in Afghanistan”.

Nawaz Sharif is left repeating his old mantra – that Pakistan is united in the battle to destroy “the menace of terrorism”. As for Turkey, it is now involved in its own “cold war” between Russia and America over Syria and is playing with the same dangerous cards as Pakistan. The Turks have the Kurds as joker in the pack – and claim that their “menace” of terrorism includes both Isis and the Kurds. It’s a rash decision to take on two armed groups at the same time. But it’s the same cold war inheritance.

Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper.  He is the author of many books on the region, including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. 

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Days ahead of President Barack Obama’s trip to Cuba, the oldest son of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara has expressed mixed feelings about the historic visit.

He will be the first sitting president to visit the island nation in nearly nine decades.

Camilo Guevara spoke to the Guardian about the implications of the trip, which begins Sunday, and expressed some optimism, calling it “historic and very important.” He also said that Obama “appears intelligent and sensitive towards the major problems of humanity.”

But he qualified by noting that Obama “was supported by corporate America.”

He also said that his father “felt that we could also transmit ourselves outwards … Maybe we can influence the U.S. in a positive way,” he said.

“But the U.S. is an empire,” he added. “Their nature is not to set the table and invite you for a feast. History shows us that every time they set a table, you have to accept you might be poisoned or stabbed in the back. But let’s see.”

As the New York Times reported earlier this month:

Talks on the trip have been unfolding for months, after the two presidents first discussed it during a September meeting in New York at the United Nations General Assembly, their second meeting after announcing the policy shift in December 2014. Mr. Obama told Mr. Castro that he would like to visit Cuba before the end of his term, but that he would be willing to make the trip only if he could justify it by pointing to concrete progress in the normalization process. He instructed senior White House aides to begin working toward that goal.

The LA Times reported Friday that “Obama is expected to sharply criticize his hosts for human rights abuses, and plans to meet with political dissidents the White House has chosen.”

But he should rethink such criticism, argues law professor Marjorie Cohn, writing at Common Dreams Friday that “a comparison of Cuba’s human rights record with that of the United States shows that the U.S. should be taking lessons from Cuba.”

“The U.S. government criticizes civil and political rights in Cuba while disregarding Cubans’ superior access to universal housing, health care, education, and its guarantee of paid maternity leave and equal pay rates,” she wrote.

And of course there’s the issue of the U.S.’s notorious offshore prison on Cuban soil.

“Guantanamo Bay is an international symbol of the breakdown of the rule of law and systemic abuse,” said Human Rights First’s Daphne Eviatar in a media statement Friday. “President Obama will likely raise Cuba’s human rights record when he meets with officials; the continued operation of Guantanamo will make it more difficult for him to have moral leadership on the issue,” she said.

While Politico reported that the trip marks “a symbolic next chapter in his attempts to normalize relations with the country,” Alexander Main, senior associate on international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said Thursday, “Obama’s trip to Cuba is being spun as a great advance in U.S.-Latin American relations, but the reality is that the administration is doubling down on its support for the right in the region and its ongoing efforts to isolate left-wing governments like Venezuela’s, against whom the Obama administration just renewed sanctions.”