General Blog

SILVERSTONE: Germany’s Sebastian Vettel ran away with the British Grand Prix in a Red Bull one-two while championship leader Jenson Button struggled at home in sixth place yesterday.

Australian Mark Webber finished runner-up, 15.1s behind the 21-year-old, with Brazilian Rubens Barrichello in third place for Brawn GP.

Britain’s Button, winner of six of the first seven races, had his overall lead over Barrichello trimmed to 23 points after finishing off the podium for the first time this year.

The dominant victory, from pole position in a race low on incident, was Vettel’s second of the season and third of his Formula One career.

The German, who also led Red Bull to a one-two in China in April, is now 25 points adrift of Button with nine races remaining.

“Thank you very much guys, this is a dream coming true. We’ve won the British Grand Prix,” he said over the team radio after taking the chequered flag.

“It is only my second time here but I enjoyed it so much,” added the youngster who also led Red Bull to a one-two in China in April.

“This is what I was dreaming of when I saw the first Grands Prix at Silverstone in the era of (Britain’s 1992 world champion Nigel) Mansell,” he added later.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was fourth, ahead of Germany’s Nico Rosberg for Williams.

“I put a lot of effort in the race and if I am honest I must say I didn’t expect to finish fourth,” said Massa. “It was a great result.”

Italy’s Jarno Trulli was seventh for Toyota, with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen taking the last point in a race billed as a farewell to the track that hosted the first Formula One championship race in 1950.

Red Bull’s superiority over the Mercedes-powered Brawn was underlined by Vettel lapping more than a second a lap faster than his rivals in the early stages, despite being heavier on fuel, and finishing 41.1s ahead of Barrichello.

“I don’t think we could have beaten them today,” said Brawn owner Ross Brawn.

Button, who had struggled all weekend for grip and to get heat into his tyres, started sixth but had fallen to ninth after the opening lap.

He worked himself back into the points and then made up two places at his second pitstop, when he switched to softer tyres and chased Rosberg all the way to the finish.

McLaren’s world champion Lewis Hamilton, who won by a massive 68 seconds in the wet last year, finished 16th – the Briton’s fourth race in a row out of the points.

Donington Park is due to host the British Grand Prix next year, although Formula One supre­mo Bernie Ecclestone has said it will return to Silverstone if that circuit is not ready. — Reuters

I know we’ve done our fair share of lauding Barcelona on The Offside recently, and I know that has annoyed a couple of people. So if anyone doesn’t want to read any more of the same I recommend clicking away now.

As you should know by now (if not then where have you been?) it finished Barcelona 2-0 Man Utd in Rome. Here are the goals....

With the game just ten minutes old, Samuel Eto’o turned Nemanja Vidic inside out and toe-poked past van der Sar:

And then in the 70th minute Messi scored. With his head. Past van der Sar (who’s about 10.5″ taller I think):

All the pre-match talk was about Barcelona’s creaky defence. But it was Vidic and Ferdinand who looked suspect. This game made it a little harder to make the case for those two as the best central defensive pairing in the world. In contrast, Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol were man-mountains at the back.

But it was midfield where Barcelona really lost it. Ably assisted by Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta absolutely ran the show in midfield. I was keeping an eye on Xavis’ passing stats (vie UEFA’s MatchCentre thingy) throughout the game, and the numbers tell you all you need to know. Xavi completed 66 out of 71 passes for a 93% completion rate, with Iniesta just behind (56/65 so 86%).
Xavi not only made the most passes and completed the most passes, he also did more running than anyone else on the pitch by covering 11,369 metres. So pretty hard to find an alternative Man of the Match (although Pique got a mention in the LiveBlog).

Man Utd’s plan was obviously to try and contain Barcelona, as evidenced by playing hardworkers Rooney and Park on the flanks. But that basically backfired and allowed Barcelona a little too much possession while neutering Utd’s usual attacking verve. By the time Fergie switched things around it was all too late.

And so Barcelona are European Champions, netting Pep Guardiola an historic treble (first Spanish team to take Champions League, La Liga and Copa del Rey) in his debut season. Best of all, they did it by playing beautiful beautiful football and with a fair share of homegrown players in the team. No wonder Michel Platini looked so happy while handing out the winners’ medals.

So congratulations to Barcelona, the very worthy winners of the 2009 Champions League.


http://www.theoffside.com/

Jorge Lorenzo romped home to an impressive victory today finishing an epic 17 seconds ahead of the pack. The Spanish rider perfectly judged the weather, staying on wet tyres for as long as possible before switching to slicks.

Rossi had a terrible race, finishing last after a catalogue of errors and bad luck. Rossi even picked up a ride through for speeding in the pitlane. James Toseland rode a steady race, finishing 9th. Race Results

1. Jorge LORENZO SPA Fiat Yamaha Team Yamaha 47'52.678
2. Marco MELANDRI ITA Hayate Racing Team Kawasaki 48'10.388
3. Dani PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 48'12.571
4. Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA Repsol Honda Team Honda 48'13.133
5. Casey STONER AUS Ducati Marlboro Team Ducati 48'23.217
6. Chris VERMEULEN AUS Rizla Suzuki MotoGP Suzuki 48'30.140
7. Colin EDWARDS USA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 48'32.869
8. Loris CAPIROSSI ITA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP Suzuki 48'38.099
9. James TOSELAND GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 48'42.985
10. Toni ELIAS SPA San Carlo Honda Gresini Honda 48'45.896
11. Alex DE ANGELIS RSM San Carlo Honda Gresini Honda 48'46.228
12. Nicky HAYDEN USA Ducati Marlboro Team Ducati 48'49.325
13. Yuki TAKAHASHI JPN Scot Racing Team MotoGP Honda 48'49.366
14. Randy DE PUNIET FRA LCR Honda MotoGP Honda 49'03.977
15. Niccolo CANEPA ITA Pramac Racing Ducati 49'08.063
16. Valentino ROSSI ITA Fiat Yamaha Team Yamaha 49'28.685

Valentino Rossi moved confidently to the top of the 2009 MotoGP World Championship by picking off all three of his title rivals in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez.

The Italian, second in both Qatar and Japan, began round three from fourth on the grid and one point behind Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, after losing out to the 21-year-old one week earlier at Motegi.

But Lorenzo's resistance lasted just one lap on Sunday before Rossi overtook the pole sitter for third position and set his sights on 2007 world champion Casey Stoner.

Stoner, winner of more 800cc races than any other rider - his most recent at the Qatar season opener - provided arguably Rossi's toughest opposition, and was the only rider to re-pass the #46 during Sunday's race.

Nevertheless, the Italian's second move stuck and - while Stoner concentrated on securing a career best third at the Desmosedici's bogey circuit - Rossi was left facing a 1.3sec gap to race leader Dani Pedrosa.

The 2007 title runner-up is at his most dangerous when left unattended at the front, and Rossi initially struggled to hunt down the Spaniard. The pair were almost even in terms of best lap time, but Rossi was more consistent and Pedrosa's advantage suddenly evaporated.

Rossi ultimately made his victory pass on lap 18 of 27 and confirmed his 98th career win by 2.7sec over Pedrosa at the chequered flag.

Afterwards, Rossi rejected claims that he had been sandbagging on Saturday, when he qualified 0.7sec behind Lorenzo.

“This is a wonderful victory because yesterday we were really quite worried,” he said. “I couldn't ride how I wanted to and it was very hard.

"We had to work all together to understand how to fix the problem and finally we made a big change to try to make the bike feel how I like in the corner, which worked, so I have to say a huge thank you to Jeremy [Burgess] and all my guys.

“This morning we could tell immediately that things were much better and then we made a couple more small changes after warm-up, which made my M1 feel even better.

“In the first few laps I was behind but I came back and had a great fight with Casey. When I arrived in second place, Dani was already more than one-second ahead and I know in that situation Dani is always very difficult to catch," continued Rossi.

“I tried to concentrate and push. At first I didn't gain, but lap by lap I was able to improve my pace and be consistent. My bike worked very well and I was fast with a sliding tyre so I was able to catch and then overtake Dani.

“To win at Jerez is fantastic. It is always a great pleasure and I'm proud to get my first victory of the year.”

On the slow down lap, Rossi repeated his famous 'portaloo' celebration from the 1999 Spanish 250GP.

“It's ten years since I made the joke with the toilet here and so I thought it would be funny to do it again if I won – I liked that a lot!” he said. “Now I hope that the changes we've made here will help us for the rest of the season.”

“This is a very important victory and after two second places everyone in the team was waiting for it and really wanted it,” admitted team manager Davide Brivio. “To win like this is something special; after being in trouble and quite sad on Saturday there was a lot of effort, long meetings, hard work by all the engineers, mechanics and technicians and finally we were able to give a good package to Valentino.

“If you can make Valentino feel happy on the bike then he will always give you this kind of performance and today it was wonderful to watch."

With Lorenzo crashing out of fourth place late in the race, Rossi is now eleven points clear of Stoner heading into round four, the French Grand Prix at Le Mans, with Pedrosa and Lorenzo both 24 points from the top in third.

MotoGP - Round Three Result
1. Valentino Rossi ITA Fiat Yamaha Team 45min 18.557 sec
2. Dani Pedrosa SPA Repsol Honda Team 45min 21.257 sec
3. Casey Stoner AUS Ducati Marlboro Team 45min 29.064 sec
4. Randy de Puniet FRA LCR Honda MotoGP 45min 50.450 sec
5. Marco Melandri ITA Hayate Racing Team 45min 51.685 sec
6. Loris Capirossi ITA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 45min 52.685 sec
7. Colin Edwards USA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 45min 52.978 sec
8. Andrea Dovizioso ITA Repsol Honda Team 45min 53.182 sec
9. Toni Elias SPA San Carlo Honda Gresini 46min 1.246 sec
10. Chris Vermeulen AUS Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 46min 3.740 sec
11. Sete Gibernau SPA Grupo Francisco Hernando 46min 6.749 sec
12. Yuki Takahashi JPN Scot Racing Team MotoGP 46min 10.432 sec
13. James Toseland GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 46min 12.240 sec
14. Alex de Angelis RSM San Carlo Honda Gresini 46min 12.498 sec
15. Nicky Hayden USA Ducati Marlboro Team 46min 19.794 sec

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