06/08/2025

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M CLAREN boss Zak Brown is prepar ing to deal with disappointment at the end of the Formula One season, even as the team enjoy one of their most dominant years and a 200th grand prix win at the weekend. As the title battle between Oscar Piastri and teammate Lando Norris heats up, the McLaren pair separated by just nine points after Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, the American conceded he was thinking also about how to handle the aftermath. Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen, the McLaren drivers’ closest rival, is now 97 points off the pace and told reporters at the weekend that he may not win again this year given his car’s issues. Even before the weekend, both Piastri and Norris cast caution aside and called it a two horse race. One of them will surely end the year celebrating a dream come true. The other will rue what might have been, with a new engine era next season shaking everything up again and chances potentially disappearing. Losing always hurts, doubly so when it is to a

Something’s gotta give McLaren must also deal with disappointment amid runaway success

Montreal accident, but no contact was made. “There’s competitiveness brewing... as the championship builds, I’m sure that tension will grow,” said the boss. “We’re fully anticipating them ‘swapping paint’ again at some point, I’m very confident it won’t be deliberate, which is where you then get into the problems. “They will have racing incidents in their further time here at McLaren, we know that and they know that, so we’re not afraid of that. “I’m positive they’re never going to run each other off the track, and that’s where you get into bad blood. “So they’re free to race... there are rules around our racing, which is respect your teammate, they know that.” – Reuters

starts. The pair have had seven one-two finishes from 14 races, including the last four, and have left rivals trailing. McLaren are so far ahead in the constructors’ standings – 299 points over Ferrari – that the crown is a given. Much has been made of the potential for a falling out between friends, for clashes on track given what is at stake, but Brown was sanguine and said the relationship was only growing stronger. When Norris ran into the back of Piastri as he challenged for the lead in Canada in June, the Briton defused the situation by immediately taking responsibility. Piastri locked up behind Norris in Hungary on Sunday, in what could have been a repeat of that

teammate with the same car, and Brown said McLaren would have to deal with the situation sensitively when – although he still insisted on saying if – the time came. “Eventually... we’ll just sit down and actually have a conversation and go ‘right, one of you is going to win and it’s going to be the best day of your life. One of you is going to lose. How do you want us to handle that?’” he told a select group of reporters. “We’ll actually sit down and go ‘Right, you want us to jump up and down and celebrate? This guy won.’ So we’re fully aware and sensitive to ‘how do you celebrate that situation?,’” Australian Piastri has won six races to Norris’s five but the Briton has momentum going into the August break, with three wins from his last four

TRAMLINES Zverev ignores fan distraction to advance

Davidson addresses Hamilton’s Ferrari predicament

Ű BY KIERAN JACKSON

there myself as a driver, age is a fac tor as well,” Davidson said prior to Hamilton’s struggles in Budapest. “I feel like this time of reflection for him, as an athlete ages, it does (affect performance). “Whatever anyone says, even himself, others that are very involved with Lewis, fans, they won’t understand where I’m com ing from, but I’ve lived and breathed it as an athlete. I’m now retired at 46. “You start asking yourself questions. It’s only natu ral.” Davidson raced in F1 from 2002 2008 at various points but com peted in endurance cars for the last decade, before retiring in 2021. Hamilton has only won twice since missing out on an eighth world title after the controversial finish to the 2021 season in Abu Dhabi, with his sights already set on new regulations next year with Ferrari. “We all know what Ferrari is like, at least from the outside,” Davidson added. “We have a few friends, ex colleagues that are on the inside and they confirm the beliefs from in the paddock that it’s a pressure cooker. “There’s a high expectation on the Italian national team to per form and the request of the stan dards are incredibly high. “He knew what he was walking

ALEXANDER ZVEREV reached his 21st Masters 1000 semifinal yesterday by ending the Canadian title defence of Alexei Popyrin 6-7 (8-10), 6-4, 6-3 at the ATP Toronto Masters. The final game, with Zverev serving at 5-3, was interrupted by shouts from an unruly fan who was tossed out by security. The distraction ended a run of 14 consecutive points on serve, with the seed double-faulting once he was able to continue serving. He finished off the evening with a sharp volley winner at the net on his first match point. Zverev completed his 40th win of the year in just over two and a half hours. “After losing the first set, I had to tell myself we were both playing well,” the holder of seven Masters trophies said. “I had one or two mistakes at the end of the first, but it was a high-level match. “I felt that if I kept playing well, I would get my chances – and I did. I can’t complain about the second and third sets.” Rybakina to face teen Mboko ELENA RYBAKINA, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, and Canadian teen Victoria Mboko advanced to a WTA Canadian Open semifinal matchup with triumphs yesterday in the Montreal hard court event. World No. 12 Rybakina of Kazakhstan led 6-1, 2-1 when Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk retired in the second set with a wrist injury. Mboko, the shocker of the event, dispatched Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 6-4, 6-2 by taking the final six games to reach her first WTA 1000 semifinal in pursuit of her first trip to a WTA final. “I’m so excited to be in the semifinal here,” Mboko told the supportive home nation crowd. “I want to thank everyone for your support once again. It has been unreal.” The crowd, which chanted “it’s not over” in French after the match, has been the best part of the amazing run, Mboko said. “I train here (in Canada) and it’s always a great opportunity to be here,” Mboko said. “My first time playing in Montreal has been an unreal experience and I couldn’t be more grateful.”

ANTHONY has addressed the “elephant in the room” of Lewis Hamilton’s age when discussing the British F1 driver’s difficult start to life at Ferrari. Hamilton, 40, is in his 19th sea son in Formula One but has endured his worst-ever start to a season, failing to finish on the podium in the first 14 races of the campaign. A win in the Chinese GP sprint race at the second round of the sea son in March, was a false dawn, with Hamilton’s best grand prix fin ish being fourth place. While teammate Charles Leclerc has registered five podiums, Hamilton is yet to finish in the top three. Hamilton labelled his perform ance over the weekend in Hungary, when he qualified and finished 12th, as “useless” and even stated that Ferrari need a new driver. Ex-F1 driver and Sky Sports pun dit Davidson, who worked with Hamilton as a simulator driver at Mercedes, spoke about the seven time world champion’s age as a fac tor. “This is just another hurdle that he’s having to overcome and I don’t mind saying it because it’s the ele phant in the room, and I’ve been DAVIDSON

Ferrari F1 driver Lewis Hamilton. – REUTERSPIC

into, but it’s never easy. As a driver, you know the chal lenges of changing teams.

“Even changing car to car, like we’ll see next year with the rules changing and like we saw in 2022. “For me, Lewis has never been the same driver since we saw the 2022 regulations come along and he’s had to work harder than ever before to rework his style that he’s done many times before in Formula 1. “The cars have changed a long way since the normally aspirated V8 and the grooved tyres that he once drove, for example, and he’s had to reinvent himself along the way.” – The Independent

Italian media slam ‘schoolboy’ Lewis after ‘useless’ admission ITALIAN media have offered a brutally honest assessment of Lewis Hamilton’s woeful Hungarian Grand Prix. to change the driver”. He fared no better in Sunday’s race, unable to make up the positions on a difficult track and finishing in 12th, meaning he was unable to claim any points.

corners, kerbs, or people dressed in red.’’ Another Italian outlet, La Repubblica , went as far as giving the Brit a brutally low grade, labelling his weekend a four out of 10. ‘’Starting 12th, finishing 12th – a flat-line performance. His Saturday remarks made waves: a self-admission that he’s the wrong kind of driver and needs to change. “Sunday didn’t bring any improvement. He struggled, fought hard, but ultimately ended up sadly outside the points. Fans are left unsure what to make of it all.’’ La Gazette Dello Sport also gave Hamilton a disappointing mark of five out of 10 for his weekend. However, an opinion piece in the paper also read: “A champion is never a champion by chance. Lewis is struggling, but he’ll recover; he’s done it before.” – Express Newspapers

The Ferrari driver’s season has been hugely disappointing compared to the fanfare and expectation that followed his move from Mercedes at the start of this season. Having been knocked out in the first part of both sprint and full-length qualifying last weekend in Belgium, the seven-time world champion went on to endure the most challenging weekend of his Ferrari career so far at the Hungaroring. He was axed in the second qualifying phase, securing just a 12th-place start in Saturday’s qualifying. Teammate Charles Leclerc qualifying in pole position only rubbed salt in the Brit’s wounds. Afterwards, a miserable Hamilton gave a concerning interview, saying: “I’m just useless,“ before going on to say that Ferrari “probably need

His defeated outlook and persistent struggles with the Italian outfit this season led many fans and experts to speculate whether age is finally catching up with the 40-year-old and comment on whether his time in F1 could be up. Italian outlet Corriere della Sera used bold language when assessing Hamilton’s weekend, describing him as a “schoolboy”. It wrote: ‘’A master of communication who now struggles to find the words, alternating between disheartening statements and hollow cliches. “Lewis looks like a schoolboy reluctantly dragged out from behind the chalkboard – desperately in need of a trip to anywhere without