Motorsports: Alonso teases 'big news' with coded Twitter message

Double Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso hinted at an imminent 'big news' announcement in a teasing Twitter message posted in code on Wednesday to the Alpine driver's 2.8 million followers.

"BTV vras nduvrg ddwa. Eno iw giadt gby awa, Q’z xwptbvrg ewqf mn ndlr!!!!," wrote the Spaniard ahead of this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

The apparent gibberish was quickly decoded by online sleuths using the Vigenere cypher, a method of encrypting alphabetic text, with 'Alpine' as the key word.

The decoded tweet read: "BIG news coming soon. And to tease you all, I’m tweeting this in code!!!!"

Alonso's French team mate Esteban Ocon, the surprise winner in Hungary in the last race before the August break, joined in the fun.

"I mtb lsu pkmecoyt evpl hdzx sue lpnx yzj’zr enydcagiyv agvatvpg ewln," he replied, translated as "I bet you everyone will work out what you’re announcing straight away."

Alonso replied with the comment: "Lpi’a fie, wtb’f wep. Iprc’vp vwg 24 lofga gs wzgs vx ofi! (Let’s see, let’s see. They’ve got 24 hours to work it out!)

Alonso, 40, is expected to stay with Alpine next season after making a comeback in 2021 following two years out of Formula One.

Alpine boss Laurent Rossi revealed last month that the Spaniard's existing deal was a 'one plus one' -- 2021 plus an option the team can take up for 2022 -- and left little doubt he would be staying.

"He is as fast as ever. He is certainly extracting the most out of the car," Rossi told the BBC.

"The car is not incredibly fast and he still manages to get some super-hot laps and qualify the car very well. So far, so good." (Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Clare Fallon)

-reuters-

Auto industry races to make ventilators during virus crisis

The automotive industry is offering its expertise and manpower to the hospital sector as it gears up to build mechanical ventilators during the coronavirus pandemic, an initiative that is being met with some scepticism.

American auto manufacturers General Motors and Ford, French car companies PSA and Renault, and Formula 1 engineers have joined the ranks in response to a massive global shortage of the vital piece of medical equipment.

As hospitals around the world face a surge of patients with breathing difficulties from COVID-19, the scarcity of ventilators has forced doctors to make life-or-death decisions.

Repurposing car factories for emergency production has drawn comparisons to World War II, when they were used to build tanks and fighter planes.

But some experts say that in this situation, building critical care ventilators will require different techniques and procedures from what a car factory normally sees.

US President Donald Trump used wartime economy analogies to justify his appeal to the automobile industry as the country grapples with a mounting number of coronavirus cases. He ultimately used a 1950s law concerning defence production to force one of GM's plants to make ventilators.

In France, meanwhile, a consortium of industrial companies has been created -- including PSA and automotive equipment supplier Valeo -- to manufacture "10,000 ventilators by mid-May", President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday.

For its part, Mercedes has asked its Formula 1 team, which was idle due to postponed or cancelled Grand Prix races, to get to work.

The six-time world champion team built a less-invasive respiratory device in order to reserve ventilators -- which require breathing tubes and sedation -- for the most severely affected patients.

The team says it could manufacture some 1,000 units a day with the help of six other UK-based F1 teams which have committed to help build the devices.

A version of the device -- which increases air and oxygen flow into the lungs and is often used to treat sleep apnea -- has already been used in hospitals in Italy and China to help COVID-19 patients.

The "Project Pitlane" mission takes advantage of "the core skills of the F1 industry: rapid design, prototype manufacture, test and skilled assembly," Formula 1 said in a statement.

- Dependent on suppliers -

Some look sceptically on the car industry's entry into the world of medical equipment, however.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a non-profit organisation founded after the creation of the atomic bomb and which is known for its symbolic "Doomsday Clock", said in a recent article that car manufacturers are not best placed for assembling medical equipment.

"Ventilators might resemble the pumps and air conditioners used in automobiles, but few automakers build their own -- they buy them from specialised producers," the group pointed out.


While carmakers have under-utilised production capacity at the moment, they are still dependent on suppliers who are often overseas, at a moment when supply chains have nearly ground to a halt, it said in its report.

"Facile images of Ford assembly lines building World War II bombers can only get us so far in solving the ventilator problems of today," the group said.

But car manufacturers say they are up to the task.

Renault has put its "technocentre" outside of Paris, its largest research and development centre in France, to work on developing a prototype using state-of-the-art equipment such as 3D printers

In the world race to get ahead of the coronavirus, time is of the essence.

For Formula 1 and University College London engineers, "it took fewer than 100 hours from the initial meeting to production of the first device," the team said.

This may be a typical lead time in motor racing, but not necessarily in other industries.

Agence France-Presse

Indonesian haze shuts down schools, sparks fears for Singapore F1

LUMPUR - Toxic haze from Indonesian forest fires closed thousands of schools across the country and in neighboring Malaysia Wednesday, while air quality worsened in Singapore just days before the city's Formula One motor race.

Illegal fires to clear land for agriculture are blazing out of control on Sumatra and Borneo islands, with Jakarta deploying thousands of security forces and water-bombing aircraft to tackle them. 

The Indonesian blazes are an annual problem, but this year's are the worst since 2015 and have added to concerns about wildfire outbreaks worldwide exacerbating global warming.

On Wednesday, air quality deteriorated to "very unhealthy" levels on an official index in many parts of peninsular Malaysia, to the east of Sumatra, with the Kuala Lumpur skyline shrouded by dense smog. 

Nearly 1,500 schools were closed across Malaysia due to the air pollution, with over 1 million pupils affected, according to the education ministry.

The two worst-affected states were Selangor, outside Kuala Lumpur, where 538 schools were closed, and Sarawak on Borneo, with 337 closures. Hundreds of schools in several other states in peninsular Malaysia were also affected. 

Borneo island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. 

A growing number of Malaysians were suffering health problems due to the haze, with authorities saying there had been a sharp increase in outpatients at government hospitals -- many suffering dry and itchy eyes.

Indonesian authorities said hundreds of schools in hard-hit Riau province on Sumatra were shut, without providing a precise number, while about 1,300 were closed in Central Kalimantan province on Borneo. 

Poor visibility also caused the cancellation Tuesday of about 40 flights at three airports in Indonesian Borneo. 

SINGAPORE SMOG RACE? 

Air quality in Singapore worsened to unhealthy levels and a white smog obscured the striking waterfront skyline, featuring the Marina Bay Sands casino resort with its 3 towers and boat-shaped top level. 

The worsening pollution increased fears that this weekend's Formula One race may be affected. Organizers say the possibility of haze is one of the issues in their contingency plan for Sunday's showpiece night race, but have not given further details.

The city-state's tourism board said spectators would be able to buy masks as protection from the haze if conditions would not improve.

Assistance would also be provided on-site for spectators who feel unwell, the board's executive director of sports, Jean Ng, told the Today news portal.

"Various Singapore government agencies have been working closely with (the) race organizer... to ensure the delivery of the best race and entertainment experience possible while keeping a watchful eye on the health and well-being of everyone involved," she said.

The Indonesian government has insisted it is doing all it can to fight the fires, with President Joko Widodo saying during a visit to a hard-hit area on Sumatra on Tuesday that "we have made every effort."

But this year's fires have been worsened by dry weather and experts believe there is little chance of them being extinguished until the onset of the rainy season in October.

Indonesia's meteorology, climate and geophysics agency said Wednesday that over 1,000 hotspots -- areas of intense heat detected by satellite that indicate a likely fire -- had been sighted, most of them on Sumatra. 

The smog is also affecting endangered orangutans on Borneo, with dozens of the young apes at rescue centers contracting respiratory infections, according to the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Hamilton wins Formula One's 1,000th race

SHANGHAI -- Lewis Hamilton won the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday to retake the overall lead from Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas in Formula One's 1,000th world championship race.

Bottas, who had started on pole but lost out to five times world champion Hamilton into the first corner, finished second for his team's third one-two finish in as many races this season.

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel took third place, the German's first podium appearance of the campaign, with Red Bull's Pierre Gasly taking the fastest lap.

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Formula 1: Kimi Raikkonen tops Singapore practice as Sebastian Vettel toils

SINGAPORE—Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest practice time for the Singapore Grand Prix on Friday but the Finn's teammate, Sebastian Vettel, suffered a frustrating start to the weekend in his bid to overhaul championship leader Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton opened a 30-point cushion over Vettel with a surprise win in Monza two weeks ago and while Ferrari are regarded as having a superior car, the Briton set the second-fastest time of the day just 0.011 seconds back in his Mercedes.

Vettel has been criticized for dropping points due to some poor tactical driving this season but there was little he could do looking on from the Ferrari garage after his car suffered a radiator fluid leak midway through the second practice session.

Raikkonen lapped the 5.063 km Marina Bay Street Circuit in 1:38.699 seconds, with Hamilton just behind as the rejuvenated Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo finished third and fourth respectively half a second further back.

Vettel's troubles began during the frantic middle sector of the second session as drivers looked to set their fastest laps on the high-grip hyper-soft tires before switching to slower compounds for race simulations.

The German was on course to challenge Raikkonen and Hamilton's best times before he clipped the wall on the final bend, causing him to abort his lap and dart into the pits with a fluid leak. He sat out the remainder of the session.

Valtteri Bottas was fifth fastest in the second Mercedes, ahead of Renault's Carlos Sainz, Haas' Romain Grosjean, McLaren's Fernando Alonso and Vettel down in ninth place after completing just 12 laps.

RED BULL JOY

In the first session of the day, Red Bull enjoyed a welcome return to the top of the timesheets after a few quiet races with Ricciardo and Verstappen securing a one-two for the team in the baking afternoon heat.

The demanding 23-turn circuit has traditionally favored the Red Bulls and Ferraris, so it was no surprise to see Vettel and Raikkonen clock the next quickest times as Mercedes opted to concentrate on long runs instead of qualifying simulations.

Ricciardo has failed to finish the last two grands prix since Formula One returned from its summer break but the Australian again showed his street circuit prowess by clocking one minute, 39.711 seconds in the scorching Singapore sun.

Dutchman Verstappen lapped in 1:39.912 to edge out Vettel by 0.085 seconds but the German will be looking for an improved third practice session and qualification on Saturday as he seeks to rein in Hamilton with seven rounds remaining.

"We can recover most of it tomorrow so we are not that worried," Vettel told Sky Sports. "It looks like being close but we won't really know until Sunday."

Sauber's Charles Leclerc continued to show the sort of form that encouraged Ferrari to sign him as Raikkonen's replacement for next season by finishing ninth in an opening session that ended on a sour note when he crashed into a wall at Turn 13.

The 20-year-old apologized to his team on the radio as he left his car stranded in an escape road with two minutes left in the session, a sight that will disappoint his future employers, who will hope he does not make similar mistakes next season. (Reporting by John O'Brien Editing by Keith Weir and Toby Davis)

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F1: Ruthless Hamilton roars to Japan win

SUZUKA, Japan -- Lewis Hamilton romped to victory at the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday to close in on a fourth world title after Sebastian Vettel retired with engine failure on lap four.

The Briton dominated from pole, steering his Mercedes to a crushing eighth win of the year, stretching his Formula One championship lead over Vettel to 59 points with just 100 left to play for.


"Honestly I could only have dreamed of having this kind of gap," said Hamilton after holding off a late charge from Max Verstappen in Suzuka. "The team has done a phenomenal job, they're just so meticulous so a big thank you to the guys."

The Red Bulls of Verstappen -- who stunned Hamilton to win in Malaysia last week -- and Daniel Ricciardo secured a double podium for the second successive race.

Valtteri Bottas finished fourth in the second Mercedes with Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari taking fifth and Esteban Ocon sixth for Force India.

Hamilton celebrated a fourth victory in Japan and a 61st career win with a 'Mobot' pose, a tribute to his friend Mo Farah, the Olympic champion athlete, who was watching trackside.

"Max drove an outstanding race and it got very close at the end," said Hamilton.

"His car was looking so big in my mirrors. It wasn't a walk in the park today. There's still a long way to go," added the Briton. "Anything can happen in life so I have to keep my head down and hopefully continue to perform like this."

Fatal blow

Vettel's title hopes, meanwhile, suffered a potentially fatal blow with four races left following nightmare start from the front row.

Ferrari mechanics worked frantically on the grid to fix a spark plug issue before lights out and Vettel was quickly complaining of a lack of power.

The German, who finished fourth in Malaysia and crashed from pole in Singapore before that, plummeted to sixth on the first lap before being told to retire the car as Hamilton roared away into the distance.

"It's just a pity in the two races with the reliability issues," said Vettel, who led the championship just six weeks ago. "But now it's important to get some rest and give my all for the last four races and see what happens."

Ferrari, who have struggled with reliability issues since the summer break, later blamed the faulty spark plug for the car's loss of speed.

"The misfortune of Ferrari is unbelievable," said Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. "But Lewis drove a spectacular race."

The warmer conditions were supposed to favor the Ferraris but Hamilton ruthlessly converted his record-breaking pole position by rapidly taking a stranglehold on the 53-lap race.

Verstappen raised pulses over the final two laps but ultimately his charge was too little too late to prevent a fourth successive Suzuka win for Mercedes.

Also in the points, Sergio Perez finished seventh for Force India ahead of the two Haas cars of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean with Felipe Massa holding off Fernando Alonso's McLaren to take 10th for Williams.

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Formula 1: Dominant Hamilton seizes Suzuka pole with record lap

SUZUKA—Formula One leader Lewis Hamilton smashed the Suzuka track record to seize a dominant Japanese Grand Prix pole position on Saturday with Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel lining up alongside on the front row.

The Mercedes driver produced a stunning fastest lap of one minute and 27.319 seconds for his first pole at the 5.8-kilometer track and 71st of his career.


The time shattered seven times world champion Michael Schumacher’s previous outright best at the circuit by 1.6 seconds.

"Incredible," said the Briton, in post-qualifying interviews conducted by his former McLaren team mate Jenson Button in front of the crowd. "It's been a really good day and every lap was fantastic.

"It's my first time. I'm running out of opportunities to get this pole, so I was like 'I've got to make sure I make it stick today'," added the Briton, who was on pole in Japan at Fuji in 2007 for McLaren.

His teammate Valtteri Bottas was second quickest, 0.332 seconds adrift but drops five places down the grid due to an unscheduled gearbox change.

The penalty will elevate Vettel to the front row of the grid, putting the two title contenders side by side for Sunday's heavyweight battle between multiple champions.

Hamilton, who leads the German by 34 points with just five races to go, brushed aside a suggestion about how aggressive Vettel might be into the first corner.

"I don't know. He won't be any more aggressive than I am," said the triple champion.

"I've got eight metres. I need to make sure I keep the eight metres that I have and get a good start. Starts have generally been strong this year."

Vettel, a four-time world champion, needs a big result this weekend to close the gap after suffering successive setbacks to his bid for a fifth title.

"I'm reasonably happy," he said.

"I tried everything on the last run, I knew I had to take a bit more risk...I would have loved to have been a bit quicker but it's quite amazing with the new cars around here. I love the track."

Saturday was Hamilton's 10th pole of the season and marked a convincing return to the top of the timesheets for Mercedes after the champions struggled for pace at the last two races in Singapore and Malaysia.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo set the fourth-fastest time ahead of Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen, winner in Malaysia last weekend.

The pair will fill the second row but were about a second off Hamilton’s pace.

Kimi Raikkonen, who will also drop five places on the grid for an unscheduled gearbox change after a crash in Saturday morning’s final practice session, set the sixth fastest time.

Esteban Ocon was seventh-quickest for Force India ahead of Mexican team-mate Sergio Perez, Williams Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, who completed the top 10 for McLaren.

The Spaniard, though, went into qualifying with a 35-place grid penalty after his team installed a fresh Honda power unit in his car overnight, exceeding his permitted allocation for the season.

He was one of five drivers to have gone into qualifying carrying grid penalties, the others being Renault’s Jolyon Palmer and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz.

Frenchman Romain Grosjean crashed his Haas at the twisty ‘Esses’ section at the start of the lap, bringing out the red flags with a little over a minute to go in the session’s opening phase. (Reporting by Abhishek Takle in Suzuka; Editing by John O'Brien/Alan Baldwin)

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F1: Hamilton marks 200th race with victory in Belgium

Vettel finished second, Ricciardo third

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium-- Lewis Hamilton celebrated his 200th Formula One race in style on Sunday with a pole-to-flag Belgian Grand Prix victory for Mercedes that halved Sebastian Vettel's championship lead to seven points.


The Briton's fifth success in 12 races this season, and 58th of his career, came a day after he equaled Michael Schumacher's all-time record of 68 pole positions.

"Sebastian put a great fight on but this is what I said I was coming to do so I did it," Hamilton told the crowd from the podium.

Vettel finished second for Ferrari, 2.3 seconds behind, after pushing his rival all the way without being able to get close enough to make a move stick in what amounted to a two-horse race of relentless pressure.

"It was really intense because every lap I was waiting for Lewis to do a mistake. He didn't," said Vettel, whose next race is Ferrari's home Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

"He was probably waiting for me to make a mistake. I didn't," added the German, who set a race lap record of one minute 46.577 seconds in the closing stages.

With eight races remaining, four-times champion Vettel has 220 points and Hamilton 213.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo took third place for Red Bull after a storming re-start following a late safety car period that had closed the gap to the frontrunners and triggered a flurry of pitstops.

Ricciardo, on fresh ultra-soft tyres, passed Hamilton's team mate Valtteri Bottas to surge into the top three, with the Finn also losing out to the Ferrari of compatriot Kimi Raikkonen as he ran wide.

Germany's Nico Hulkenberg finished sixth for Renault, Romain Grosjean was seventh for Haas and Brazilian Felipe Massa took eighth for Williams.

MAX RETIRES

"It's pretty much for all the Dutch here, so thanks for hanging around," said Ricciardo, whose teenage team mate Max Verstappen retired shaking his head in sheer frustration after eight laps.

It was his sixth retirement in 12 races.

"There are so many fans paying a lot for the tickets and you finish like this. That cannot happen with a top team," said Verstappen, whose orange-clad compatriots accounted for a majority of the crowd.

While Hamilton and Vettel played out their own private duel, there was plenty of action further down the field with the Force India duo of Mexican Sergio Perez and Frenchman Esteban Ocon playing a starring role.

The simmering pair clashed twice, the second time bringing out the safety car when Ocon -- who finished ninth -- tried to get past on the run down to Eau Rouge and was almost squeezed into the wall.

"I can accept the first one -- perhaps he couldn't see me but the second one was ridiculous. He was risking our lives. He risked my life," said a furious Ocon.

Debris from his car's broken front wing littered the track while Perez's right rear tire was punctured, leaving him limping back to the pits on a rim.

"It looked like Sergio squeezed Esteban into the wall and came out the loser of that scrap," the team's chief operating office Otmar Szafnauer told Sky Sports television, warning that the team would read the riot act.

"We’ve let them race up until now. If they can’t do it in a manner which is good for the team, then they won’t be racing any more," he said.

Spaniard Fernando Alonso was also an unhappy man in the McLaren, the double world champion making a storming start but his Honda-powered car's lack of speed leaving him with an impossible task and increasingly frustrated before retiring.

"Embarrassing, embarrassing," he had said earlier.

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