Raikkonen and Hamilton set pace

Eurosport - Fri, 14 Mar 08:13:00 2008

Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton renewed their rivalry at the top of the timesheets in practice for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Ferrari's Raikkonen, limbering up for his first race as world champion, laid down an early marker for Sunday's grand prix with a one minute 26.461 second lap that topped the morning timesheets at Albert Park.

But the Finn was less happy with his car's set-up in the afternoon, when Hamilton was quickest.
"I'm not very happy with the way practice went," he said.

"This morning we found some good settings for the car but in the afternoon we struggled and our lap times reflect that.

"We must look carefully at the data to work out how to improve the car."

Raikkonen won in Melbourne last year on his Ferrari debut and the Finn will be chasing a third successive victory after ending 2007 on a high with triumphs in China and Brazil taking him to the title by a single point.

Hamilton, the 23-year-old who missed out on the 2007 title by a single point after a stunning debut season with McLaren, was more positive.

"There was some good progress with the car and we made the best use of the ever-improving track conditions," he said.

His lap of 1:26.559, in 36 degree Celsius heat and under a cloudless sky, ousted Red Bull's Australian Mark Webber from the top spot.

Ferrari and McLaren, between them winners of every race last year, dominated the field in the first session but the pecking order was shaken up by Red Bull's strong showing after lunch.

Webber, who was a considerable 0.914 off Hamilton's time, cautioned his home fans against expecting too much however after a session that saw cars running with different fuel levels.

"We're not second quickest, we're still fighting for the back of the points," he said.

Ferrari's Brazilian Felipe Massa and McLaren's new Finnish signing Heikki Kovalainen were third and fourth fastest respectively in both sessions.

Spain's double world champion Fernando Alonso, who has returned to Renault after a bitter and tumultuous year alongside Hamilton at McLaren, was sixth in the morning but 13th in the second stint and complained of gusting winds.

"We must still find some performance but I am optimistic for the rest of the weekend," he said.
The top 10 highlighted the fierce fight behind Ferrari and McLaren, with seven teams jostling for position.

Poland's Robert Kubica was seventh fastest for BMW in the morning, ahead of Toyota's German rookie Timo Glock and compatriot Sebastian Vettel in a Toro Rosso.

Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, a winner in Australia with Renault in 2005, showed Force India were likely to be more serious contenders than predecessors Spyker with ninth place in the afternoon after 12th place earlier on.

Toyota-powered Williams, whose pre-season testing times were impressive, made a troubled start with Germany's Nico Rosberg failing to register a timed lap in the morning before lapping eighth fastest in the second session.

The first session was halted for four minutes after Brazilian rookie Nelson Piquet Jr spun and stalled on the track.

Stoner opens title defence with dramatic victory in Losail

Reigning MotoGP World Champion Casey Stoner began his title defence in style with victory in the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar – the first ever MotoGP night race – ahead of Spaniards Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.

The Ducati Marlboro rider started the race off the front row for the first time in his MotoGP career, chasing a repeat of his debut premier class victory from last year. Stoner didn't have things all his way in the early going, but held off challenges from some of the favourites for the 2008 crown to win by over five seconds from Lorenzo.

Behind the Australian, Fiat Yamaha rider and reigning 250cc World Champion Lorenzo followed up on his spectacular Saturday pole with a jaw-dropping debut MotoGP race. The Spaniard showed no fear in the face of a field packed with racewinners, joining Stoner in breaking away from the pack to take a maiden podium at his very first attempt.

Another rider to step onto the rostrum in his first MotoGP race was Repsol Honda rider Pedrosa, who for the third consecutive year finished in the top three at the opening race of the year. The 2007 World Championship runner-up had to work for his reward, however, taking the holeshot from the third row of the grid and getting some rough treatment by the frontrunners in their attempts to break away.

JiR Team Scot rider Andrea Dovizioso joined eternal adversay Jorge Lorenzo in making a fantastic 800cc debut, taking fourth place from five-time MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi on the final lap of the race.

The former 250cc star picked off his fellow Italian after Rossi had dropped out of the running for third, both finishing just ahead of Tech 3 Yamaha's front row duo of James Toseland and Colin Edwards in the former's first Grand Prix.

Suzuki's Loris Capirossi, LCR Honda's Randy de Puniet and 2006 World Champion Nicky Hayden completed the top ten, with De Puniet finishing a MotoGP race in Qatar for the first time.

The only two retirees were Chris Vermeulen – with a mechanical problem – and the final debutante in the class Alex de Angelis, who crashed out with five laps remaining.

Peter leader of the heavyweight class

CANCUN, Mexico – The fight was in a bull ring and this time, the bull won.

Samuel Peter used sheer brute force to overwhelm Oleg Maskaev in their bout for the WBC heavyweight title on Saturday at the Plaza de Toros, stopping Maskaev with four seconds left in the sixth round after a series of clubbing shots.

The bout was only marginally better than Wladimir Klitschko’s win over Sultan Ibragimov last month, in which Klitschko added the WBO belt to his IBF title.

There was a lot to complain about on Saturday, but Peter at least deserves credit for doing what fans have come to expect of a heavyweight champion.

The minute he hurt Maskaev, he attacked. A lot of flaws can be erased, and overlooked, with the kind of power that Peter displayed against Maskaev.

“I have the power and I told you that,” Peter said after raising his record to 30-1 with his 24th knockout. “I’m strong and I am ready to fight anybody.”

The first round was so devoid of action that it looked like Round 13 of the Klitschko-Ibragimov bout. And it had many more stretches of non-action than it did of action, but pretty much everything Peter threw was with intention to maul and maim.

Maskaev, who hadn’t fought in 15 months, looked like he had been on the shelf for too long. His timing wasn’t good and he seemed exceptionally slow.

Peter was about a 5-1 favorite, largely because of the thump he carries in his hands. After two uneventful rounds, Peter cracked Maskaev with a right that sent the one-time lieutenant in the Soviet army stumbling back into the ropes.

It was the kind of move that separates Peter from most of the other heavyweights in the world.
“That’s what he does,” said Dino Duva, Peter’s co-promoter. “Samuel Peter has the kind of power to make people forget the other heavyweight champions.”

It may not be the kind of power to make anyone forget a champion like Larry Holmes, who was sitting at ringside, but it’s more than enough to make him a star among the current diluted crop.
Maskaev has a hard right of his own, but he didn’t hit anywhere near hard enough, or throw enough punches other than range-finding jabs, to keep the barrel-chested Peter from walking him down.

Maskaev’s plan seemed to be to circle and pop a jab in Peter’s face, but he didn’t even seem to want to commit to the jab. He flicked it and didn’t seem to throw it with much conviction.

That a 39-year-old coming off more than a year’s layoff would look slow and rusty should be no surprise, but what was more surprising was the passive way Maskaev took the loss.

He was hit repeatedly behind the head by Peter, a tactic he had complained about before the bout. And though it seemed that referee Lupe Garcia’s stoppage was a bit premature, Maskaev accepted it with equanimity.

“He didn’t knock me out,” Maskaev said. “He shook me and he knocked me back and the ref did the right thing.”

Maskaev did precious little over the first four rounds save for brief stretches in the third. But in the fifth, Maskaev began to take a bit of the play away from Peter and wobbled the one-time Nigerian Olympian.

Maskaev, though, wasn’t quick enough to capitalize on his opportunity. Peter recovered quickly and fought his way out of danger.

“I hurt him a few times, yes, but I wasn’t able to finish,” said Maskaev, who was stopped for the sixth time in 40 pro fights. “He did hurt me a few times.”

Now, the journey for Peter leads from a Kazakhstani-born heavyweight to a pair from Ukraine.
He must next fight former WBC champion Vitali Klitschko, who hasn’t fought since 2004 and who retired in 2005 because of a series of major injuries. The older of the two Klitshcko brothers, who is best known for a rousing performance in a 2003 loss to Lennox Lewis, Vitali tried to make a comeback last year and had to pull out because of (surprise, surprise) injury.

But when he retired, the WBC bestowed him with the seemingly innocuous honor of WBC champion emeritus, promising him an immediate shot at the title should he ever come back. At the time, after he failed to make the post for a series of bouts, it seemed unlikely he’d ever be able to exercise that option.

But he’s back and Peter will have to defeat both brothers to gain acclaim as the man in the division.

His only loss was to Wladimir Klitschko, whom he knocked down three times in their 2005 bout. But other than the three rounds in which he scored a knockdown, Peter lost every other round.
But in his exuberance after defeating Maskaev, he was eager to get another crack.

“I’m ready to tomorrow and I’ll beat both of them on the same night,” Peter said. “First the older one and then the other one.”

He made the excuse that so many fighters make after a loss, saying he didn’t take the first Klitschko fight seriously.

“Now, I’m seeing that big money coming up, and I’m going to take them all seriously now,” he said, beaming.

It was a night for beaming, at least for Peter.

And if he can continue to deliver the way he did on Saturday, it might be the first step toward the resuscitation of a long-dormant division.