Latest news with #motorsport
Reuters
9 hours ago
- Sport
- Reuters
Marquez crashes twice in bruising day of practice at Dutch Grand Prix
June 27 (Reuters) - Ducati's MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez crashed twice on a painful day of practice at the Dutch Grand Prix in Assen on Friday, with the Spaniard saying he was lucky to walk away with no major injuries ahead of the weekend's action. Marquez, who has not won at Assen in seven years, arrives at the Cathedral of Speed with a 40-point lead but as he put the Ducati through its paces, he struggled on the sweeping turns when the medium front tyre failed to grip in cool conditions. The first crash saw Marquez go down in a highside crash and as he ended up in the gravel, he quickly took off his left glove in apparent pain. On the second crash, Marquez lost his balance on a turn and slid into the gravel again, this time stomach down as the bike tumbled away from him. The 32-year-old initially stood up but appeared winded and quickly sat on his haunches holding his groin before he was helped off the track by marshalls. "It's not an easy day for my body but apart from that I'm lucky because nothing important -- some things, yes -- but it's not something that will be a problem for the next two days. Tomorrow I will check when I get up," Marquez said with a smile. "The first one (crash) was a bit strange because I was not really pushing but it felt super slippery. The second one was a consequence, it was a time attack but I did the time attack with the front tyre that I crashed this morning." Marquez also sported a small cut on his chin after his slide across the gravel and the Ducati rider said the size of the stones did not help as he also hurt his stomach. "The rocks are super big and then when you arrive there with that high speed, it hits your body," he added. "I had a problem and then I was breathing (hard) there on the gravel because I was sliding on the gravel face down." Marquez eventually advanced to the Q2 qualifying session but he was not the only rider to crash on Friday, with his brother Alex of Gresini Racing -- second in the championship -- also going down. There were as many as nine crashes and two red flags coming out when Trackhouse Racing's Ai Ogura suffered a crash as his bike landed in a fiery heap while Aprilia's Lorenzo Savadori also went down due to a nasty highside. Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo topped the practice session timesheet ahead of Alex Marquez, KTM's Pedro Acosta and Aprilia's Marco Bezzecchi as four different manufacturers made the top five rounded out by Ducati's Francesco Bagnaia.
The Sun
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Max Verstappen reveals why he snubbed Lewis Hamilton's F1 film red carpet in favour of changing smelly nappies
MAX VERSTAPPEN would rather be changing nappies at home than wearing a tuxedo on the red carpet. They certainly don't make 'em like four-time world champion Verstappen anymore, who has been as real as they get this season in the world's most luxurious sport. 6 6 6 The Dutchman has swerved two red carpets for Lewis Hamilton 's new Hollywood movie, starring Brad Pitt, and has not even watched the film yet. He would rather be on dad duties with his two-month old baby Lily, enduring sleepless nights and changing nappies which he admits: 'Some are more smelly than others'. Verstappen has also been dipping his toes in other areas of motorsport, like testing a GT3 in Spa during the first F1 movie premiere in New York as his patience continues to wear thin in F1. He is focused on his growing family of girlfriend, Kelly, the daughter of former F1 world champion Nelson Piquet, their daughter Lily and his step daughter Penelope, who are based in Monaco. Verstappen, at the Red Bull Ring ahead of his team's home race in Austria, told SunSport: 'Being authentic is not something I have to try and focus on. It's just who I am. 'I don't like to be on the red carpet and dress up in a suit. I don't like to interact with people that I don't really know, and have a fake smile and fake chat. It's horrible, I just don't enjoy it. 'I prefer to hang out with my friends and spend time with my little family. I also have a lot of other projects going on outside of F1. 'So any extra work like red carpets is not what I want to do. I'm at a stage of my career where I've achieved so much professionally. 'I'm just focusing outside of it now, like my big passions to make life more enjoyable and not just being performance driven.' Verstappen is fiercely private when it comes to his family but when asked about his being a girl dad, he added: 'It's super cute. I'm trying to spend as much time making it all work. Max Verstappen goes for a spin around the upgraded F1 circuit at Zandvoort 'With the nappies, some are more smelly than others!' Verstappen rose to fame as something of a villain due to Netflix's hit docu-series Drive to Survive. It didn't help that his route to his first world championship title in Abu Dhabi in 2021 was tarnished by a safety car mishap which many felt stole the crown from Lewis Hamilton. There is also a dark side there, which was on show at the Spanish Grand Prix three-weeks ago when he rammed into George Russell to leave him one point away from a race ban. But he has won over more hearts than ever in recent years, being unapologetically himself and unafraid to stand up to the sport's governing body, the FIA, and its controversial president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. He even won over his old rival Hamilton when he was ordered to do community service for dropping an F-bomb in an FIA press conference last year. He has remained tight-lipped in press conferences this season, but his silence has spoken volumes for the dissatisfaction from most drivers towards the FIA's rules. He said: 'I think it's a bit of a Dutch thing. I'm straightforward. I'm the same on track. I say the same in the paddock as I do with my friends. It's important to be honest. 'When I'm not happy with something I say it, I let people know, that approach works really well for me.' There has been constant speculation surrounding Verstappen's future with him growing increasingly exasperated with the FIA and the slog of marketing requirements for drivers. After all he is the centrepiece of a sport stacked with millionaires flashing their cash, designer outfits and superyachts - but Verstappen just loves to burn rubber. 6 The Dutchman would rather avoid the spotlight entirely, so much so that he recently used a fake name Franz Hermann to secretly test a Ferrari at the Nurburgring where he smashed a lap record. Verstappen's next goal is securing a Nordschleife permit, a special racing license, to compete in events at the Nurburgring, including the Nurburgring 24 Hours, rather than chasing records in F1. There has been talk of Verstappen taking a year off in 2026 and he says it is outside ventures like the Nurburgring appearance that are keeping him in F1, for now. He added: 'The fake name was because I wouldn't be on the entry list. People would have known way far in advance and there would be way more people there. 'What I'm doing outside F1 makes me stay around a bit longer in F1. I'm trying to make it work and keep it fun. 'I want to get my license (Nordschleife permit), so I need to do a race in a slower car so I'm planning on that. 'When you do things outside of F1, it's more relaxed, which doesn't mean it's less professional and my desire to win is the same. It's something I really enjoy exploring. 'It's important to enjoy my time. Time passes so quickly and I want to look back and be around for my family.' 6
Telegraph
10 hours ago
- Automotive
- Telegraph
Toto Wolff admits Mercedes are in talks to sign Max Verstappen
Pressed on Russell's comments, Wolff said: 'We are going into territory I don't want to discuss here. People talk, people explore and, most importantly in our organisation, we are transparent. But it doesn't change a millimetre my opinion of George, his abilities or anything else. 'I like what George says and I am supportive of the driver. We are transparent in the team as to what we do and how we plan and we have been like that since I was in charge so that is not the issue. At the moment, clearly, we need to explore what is happening in the future. 'But it doesn't change what I think about George, or Kimi or the line-up that I am extremely happy with.' When asked whether he has held 'tentative talks' with Verstappen's representatives, however, he said: 'Yeah. You make it sound like we have been asking, 'When do you want to join and what are the terms?' That's not how it is and how it works. I want to just have the conversations behind closed doors, not town halls.' Verstappen break clause could be key to future Verstappen as good as told Telegraph Sport in May that he would stay at Red Bull for 2026, revealing he had 'told his team' that he would stay. But if the four-time champion has since lost confidence in the team ahead of next year's huge regulation changes, all bets are off. Verstappen is rumoured to have a performance clause in his contract, which could be triggered if he is not in the top three in the drivers' championship by the summer break. His father, former F1 driver Jos Verstappen, also has a strained relationship with Horner. Verstappen's own strained relationship with Russell is one possible fly in the ointment. The pair have clashed on many occasions. Verstappen has also traditionally had a defined No 2 next to him and would probably prefer to partner Antonelli. Asked whether he could imagine a Russell-Verstappen pairing, Wolff smiled. 'I can imagine every line-up,' he said. 'I had [Nico] Rosberg and [Lewis] Hamilton fighting for a world championship so everything afterwards is easy. There are pros and cons having two drivers fight each other hard and we have seen examples where they have functioned and others where they didn't.' Asked whether he was back to flirting with Verstappen again, and whether something had changed to make him do so, Wolff again smiled. 'No, nothing has changed, there is no flirting in that sense. It depends how you categorise that. You can flirt, or you can have conversations.'
Geek Culture
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
F1: The Movie – Review
Formula 1 has been basking in its Drive to Survive (2019 – present) glow for years now, transforming what was once a niche motorsport into a global sporting obsession. Netflix's slick docuseries introduced newcomers to the sound and fury of the paddock, giving the sport an emotional engine. In a sudden turnaround, names like Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, and Lando Norris were common parlance, even in households that couldn't tell Monza from Monaco. The show didn't need to explain what DRS (Drag Reduction System) was every episode, as it trusted viewers to catch up while feeding them the interpersonal drama that comes from a high-speed chess game played across 24 cities a year. For many, it was the gateway drug as Formula 1, once considered opaque and elitist, became dinner table conversation. F1: The Movie knows that the audience is already onboard. Directed by Joseph Kosinski ( Tron: Legacy ) and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer ( Bad Boys , Pirates of the Caribbean ), both fresh off the mega successful Top Gun: Maverick (2022), the duo have once again built a world of roaring engines, grizzled veterans, and daredevils who mistake the edge of disaster for home. Brad Pitt ( Fight Club , Troy ) plays the ageing underdog (because of course he does) while British race champion driver Hamilton ( Cars 2 ), serving as co-producer, ensures the technical details stay true to form. The result is a movie that doesn't stop to hold your hand as it drops viewers straight onto the grid, where every tenth of a second is a career-defining margin and every decision at 300 kilometres per hour has consequences. Pitt slips effortlessly into the racing boots of Sonny Hayes, a semi-mythical driver cut from the same cloth as Tom Cruise's ( Mission: Impossible ) Maverick – weathered, stubborn, dangerously charismatic and a savant in the driver's seat. When Hayes enters the 24 Hours of Daytona track for a one-off endurance race, he drives like a man shaking off ghosts, and wins. Then he leaves, no fanfare, back into obscurity. Enter Ruben Cervantes, Hayes' longtime friend and former teammate played by Javier Bardem ( Skyfall ). Bardem leans into his trademark mix of unhinged charisma and wounded charm, playing an ex-racer turned desperate team boss with a half-smile and a mounting pile of debt. APXGP, the team he now runs, has grown far more familiar with the back of the pack than the winner's podium, and with US$350 million on the line, he needs a miracle to survive and that miracle is Sonny Hayes. Once neck-and-neck with Ruben for Formula 1's spotlight, Hayes flamed out after a brutal crash during a race against Brazilian motorsports racing legend Ayrton Senna. Rather than stage a fictional wreck, director Kosinski splices in real footage of Martin Donnelly's horrifying 1990 Spanish Grand Prix crash, itself an audacious, borderline exploitative move that lends visceral power at the cost of taste. There's something eerily meta about the way Hayes is written, as if Pitt is circling through echoes of his old roles: grimy charm in a trailer à la Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019), a laid-back Vegas smoothness like Rusty Ryan in the Ocean's franchise (2001-2007), and flashes of moody introspection from Roy Richard McBride in Ad Astra (2019). Hayes is a remix of archetypes who doesn't just break rules; he cruises past them like they're race markers that don't apply to him. And somehow, the movie agrees. But even a superstar comeback needs tension, which arrives in the form of Damson Idris' ( Snowfall ) Joshua Pearce, a hotshot rookie with something to prove and no interest in sharing the spotlight. He's put in the work, earned his place, and sees Hayes as a relic of a past he's trying to surpass. The bravado feels earned, but you can see the cracks when no one's looking. Idris plays those cracks with a kind of restrained grace, letting sarcasm and swagger slip into vulnerability at just the right moments. What makes their relationship work is that Hayes sees it. Maybe for the first time in years, he recognises someone else walking the same razor-thin line between arrogance and doubt. As the races tick by, their relationship is built not on dramatic monologues, but on wariness, competition, and the kind of grudging respect that only forms when both men realise they're chasing the same ghosts. Hayes sees in Pearce a younger version of himself – cocky, hungry, and terrified of losing it all before he ever really gets started. Pearce, in turn, watches Hayes with the suspicion of someone who's had to fight for every inch and isn't about to give up pole position. Their tension softens without ever vanishing, resulting in a partnership built on mutual recognition rather than contrived mentor-mentee sentiment. Adding a different dynamic to the pit is Kate McKenna, played by Kerry Condon ( The Banshees of Inisherin ), who serves as APXGP's sharp-edged technical director. She's sceptical from the moment Hayes walks in, understandably so, since her job (and the team's survival) depends on performance. Condon brings a steely intelligence to Kate, and she reads as the most competent person in any room she walks into, which makes the film's choice to fold her into a romantic subplot all the more deflating. There's an attempt to show mutual respect (two professionals finding a brief connection under pressure), but it ends up feeling like a reluctant box-tick for formulaic storytelling. What's frustrating is that McKenna represents a growing shift within motorsport, where more women are entering roles beyond the sidelines: engineers, strategists, team bosses. You can feel F1: The Movie trying to nod to that progress, especially with Condon's presence and a few quick shots of women in the pit lane and grandstands but it's clear intent only gets you so far. Formula 1's gender imbalance remains glaring, and the movie gestures at change without committing to saying anything meaningful about it. What makes it worse, for all the attention to realism in Formula 1's mechanics, it stumbles when it comes to believability. Kosinski's eye for speed and chaos hasn't dulled, but when Hayes repeatedly pulls off stunts that would trigger immediate disqualification from the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) in real life, the film starts to veer dangerously close to parody. There's one particularly egregious moment involving a purposeful crash that feels less like a daring move, and more like 2008's Renault Formula One crash controversy, also known as Crashgate, minus any of the consequences. Any viewer remotely familiar with how tightly Formula 1 is regulated would find it hard to believe the FIA would let APXGP continue unchecked after that incident. That being said, the film is at its strongest when it respects the visual grammar of the sport, even as it occasionally rewrites the rules. Kosinski smartly grounds the film by weaving his fictional team into real events, blurring the line between fabrication and fandom (drivers Verstappen, Leclerc, Norris, Carlos Sainz, Oscar Piastri, Fernando Alonso, and more appear in short cameos that add to the overall realism of the film). The pacing lifts with the hum of engines and squeal of tyres, elevated by Hans Zimmer's ( Inception , Interstellar ) kinetic score fresh off his Days of Thunder (1990) legacy. His music pulses through each turn, feeding into the tension of a slick curve or a critical pit stop, where every second counts. And just when it feels like the engines can't scream any louder, cinematographer Claudio Miranda's ( Oblivion ) camera launches into overdrive. Mounted on cockpits, wedged into wheel wells, swinging under spoilers… with some shot using Apple's iPhone camera technology, it captures every frame like it's riding shotgun with a death wish. It's bravura technical filmmaking that evokes Grand Prix (1967) and Le Mans (1971), but juiced with modern precision. If Top Gun (1986) made you feel like you were flying, F1: The Movie plants you in the driver's seat and slams the pedal hard into the visceral rush of it all. That's the formula Kosinski sticks to: grip, go, don't over-explain. Where some sports dramas dig into soul-searching monologues or try to reinvent the wheel, F1: The Movie just wants to go fast in its 2 hours and 36 minutes runtime (roughly the time Ferrari needs to make a strategy call), and damn if it doesn't look good doing it. The emotional beats may be familiar, the dialogue occasionally pre-programmed, but once the tyres screech and the camera dives, none of that really matters. Because sometimes, all you want is for the car to go so fast it starts to shake the screen and leave rubber marks on your retinas. And honestly? It might be onto something. Summary For all its missteps, F1: The Movie understands one thing better than most: speed is cinema. The plotlines may veer close to parody, but every pit stop, downshift, and overtaking manoeuvre buys it just enough goodwill to keep racing toward the finish. Story - 6.5/10 Direction - 7.5/10 Characterisation - 7/10 Geek Satisfaction - 7.5/10 Natalie is a big fan of anything related to movies, TV shows, and anime — you name it. When she's not reading or being a dedicated cinephile, she's probably playing gacha and tabletop games, or daydreaming of Caleb from Love and Deepspace . F1 F1 The Movie Joseph Kosinski Review
BBC News
14 hours ago
- Automotive
- BBC News
Dunlop 'as competitive as ever' after successful year
Michael Dunlop says he is as "competitive as ever" after a successful year at the Isle of Man TT and North West ended his eight-year victory drought at the North West 200 when he won the opening Supersport race He then added to that by winning in the Superstock and Superbike classes at the Northern Ireland road race. The 36-year-old then won four races at the Isle of Man TT to extend his own winning record at the event to 33 victories."For the first time in a while I was really competitive at the North West, which was good," Dunlop told BBC Sport NI. "To do a triple there and go to the TT and win another four it's been a great year."The main job for me is the North West and TT, and I think we've done a successful job there and proven we're still one of the top men."Dunlop is racing at the Tandragee 100 national road race in county Armagh this weekend and heads to the national race in confident mood."When you are leaving those events [NW200 and TT] with most wins, I'm into the 30s now with the TT, it's good. "To go into the 30s where nobody is is nice. I would like to keep pushing at it, I feel like I'm as competitive as ever. "You just don't know with this game. At the end of the day, to get where I'm at is pretty cool and if I can add to it, I will. "We had a really good year and I'm faster than I ever was, so there's no reason we can't go back and win more TTs and more North Wests." Last year, Dunlop said national road racing was "finished" and the larger North West 200 and Isle of Man TT events would "thrive regardless". Ahead of his appearance at the Trandragee 100, which came through an invitation from one of his sponsors, Dunlop added that national road racing in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland "are in a bad place" and said it was "nice" to help the race organisers out with his appearance. The top road racers dovetail their Isle of Man and North West 200 commitments by participating in the British Superbike Championship, and do not usually ride at national road races."The North West 200 has thrived this year, the TT has thrived. The events that are doing things right are thriving. "Yes, it's harder for these smaller events. I know why some of them are doing some stuff wrong, but it's hard to say it's fallen when you go to the North West this year."The amount of people was mental. It's the exact same with the TT."It's hard to say people aren't supporting it when you see the likes of those events and they are absolutely booming." Dunlop says he will race at the Southern 100, Classic TT and look at racing at a round or two of the British Superbike asked if he would even race in British Superbikes full-time, he said he would like to but feels he's "too long in the tooth now".It's hard. Did we miss that boat? Without a doubt. But did I ever go looking for it? Probably not, and I probably would have liked to have had a bit of a shot at it. "With time I could fall into it, there's no reason that if we spent a bit of time doing BSB I could put in a half decent charge at it."
