ITALY: Ferrari has been making steady steps towards full electrification of their supercars and made a grand statement with the digitally handled release of the hybrid-powered Ferrari 296 GTB on live streams and various social media channels. The latest, mid-rear-engined, two-seater supercar from the prancing horses’ stable promises hybrid power for the consumer.
Ferrari 296 GTB isn’t the first Ferrari to receive a hybrid drive function. Ferrari has been playing around with the idea since 2010 when it unveiled the 599-based Hy-Kers concept at the Geneva Motor Show. Since then, the tech has been used in the LaFerrari and the SF90 Stradale.
Ferrari 296 GTB is the first 6-cylinder engine to get the Ferrari badge. It’s a 3.0-liter power unit with turbochargers installed inside the V structure. On its own, it produces 663 HP at 8,500 RPM.
The combustion engine is attached to a rear-wheel-drive PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) system for an additional 167 HP totaling a total system output of 830 HP and 740 Nm at 6250 RPM. Notably, it’s for the first time that Ferrari has mounted the electronic motor at the rear of the car.
Its Power is transmitted through the familiar 8-speed DCT gearbox. Ferrari claims the top speed to be 330 kmph with a 0-100kmph in 2.9 seconds and 200 kmph in 7.3 seconds. It lapped the Fiorano test track in just 1 minute 21 seconds. According to the test data of Ferrari, the 296 GTB has a range of 25 km in the full-electric drive.
The Ferrari 296 GTB takes subtle inspiration from Ferrari’s back catalog. The rear B-pillar, rear haunches, and Kamm tail evoke the 250 LM. While the wrap-around windscreen is inspired by the modern. The so-called entry-level Ferrari 296 GTB costs a whopping $321,400 with the Assetto Fiorano specification costing $360,900.
AUSTRIA: Unlike the Styrian Grand Prix, Verstappen faced no real challenge throughout the race not even from his arch rival Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen secured a first-ever ‘grand slam weekend’, with pole, fastest lap, and victory, having led every lap.
Championship rival Lewis Hamilton worked hard after having to be patient behind an ever-improving Lando Norris who managed to keep the experienced British driver at bay for over 20 laps to reach second place after starting P4 on the grid before aerodynamic damage, picked up by running over the rough exit curbs at turn 10, hampered his progress, allowing Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas to get past him followed by McLaren’s Lando Norris who put on an impressive drive on his second stint on the hard compound tires.
Under criticism due to a string of poor performances coupled with bad luck in the previous few races, Valtteri Bottas held on to P2 while managing deteriorating tires fending off the challenge from Norris, who was awarded Driver Of The Day, with the McLaren driver taking his third podium finish of the season by coming P3. Hamilton held on for fourth after a second pit stop for a fresh set of hard tires but slipped from 18 to 32 points behind Verstappen in the Drivers championship standings.
Red Bull rued not having a second driver in the top mix after Sergio Perez who had an action-filled race after starting from third on the grid slipped back to P10 after tangling with Lando Norris and going onto the gravel in the exit of turn 4. After an early safety car, called on Lap 1 when Esteban Ocon was forced to retire from the race after his Alpine sustained front right wheel damage after bumping Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo at Turn 3, Perez challenged Norris for P3 at Turn 4.
Going around the outside, Perez was pushed wide off track by Norris who was given a five-second penalty which can be best described as a close decision on a day where the Race Stewards were handing out time penalties quite frequently. However, Perez would later push Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari off the track at the same place and pick up an identical penalty, before repeating it at Turn 6 and getting one more time penalty.
That meant that while Perez crossed the line in P5, he was relegated to P6, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who brilliantly charged his way up the field after running a long opening stint on the hard compound, finished 5th.
McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, Leclerc, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, and Alpine’s Fernando Alonso completed the top 10, with Alonso having to fight hard to wrestle the final points spot from Williams’ George Russell who put up a staunch defense. There was last lap drama as Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikonnen tangled with Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel which resulted in both of them crashing out of the race.
FRANCE: The woman who caused a huge crash at the Tour de France race on Saturday will be sued appropriately, the race organizer said on Monday.
“We are using this woman who behaved so badly,” said Pierre-Yves Thouault, the event’s Deputy Director, as quoted by Agence France-Presse(AFP). “We are doing this so that the negligible number of people who do this don’tsoil the show for everyone.”
On Saturday, a spectator held up large cardboard saying “ALLEZ OPI-OMI!” – A message saying hello to the person’s grandparents, which stuck out into the middle of the road on which the cyclists were racing.
Tony Martin on the Jumbo-Visma team hit the sign and crashed which caused a chain reaction. Due to this, dozens of cyclists fell onto the pavement. According to the reports, the woman appeared to be looking at the TV cameras and not the riders.
Several cyclists sustained injuries including bloody arms and legs. Other cyclists such as Jasha Sütterlin of Team DSM, had to stop due to the mishap in the Tour de France.
Sütterlin was taken to the hospital to be examined and later turned out to have suffered a severe contusion to his right wrist, a statement said.
Two Ineos riders Richie Porte and Tao Geoghegan Hart both lost time, while champion Tadej Pogacar saw his right hand man Marc Hirschi badly hurt.
A second crash happened later on a few miles down the road but the cause was unclear.
Quoting regional newspaper Ouest France, AFP reported that the woman fled the scene after the massive pile-up of cycles and the cyclists. The woman can be seen wearing a yellow coat and the authorities are calling on witnesses to step up and help to find her, the BBC reported.
AUSTRIA: The Red Bull Ring has been a stronghold for Redbull and Max Verstappen in the past, with the two-time Austrian GP race winner seemingly having his RB16B set up beautifully from the start of qualifying, making excellent strides as the session turned out into an interesting affair.
Championship leader Verstappen took provisional pole with his first run and his second lap, albeit slower than the first but was good enough to take the top spot, as the Ham-Bot challenge lost its steam. Bottas nudged past Hamilton into second which a very handy lap at the final minutes of the session, but will drop to fifth following a three-place grid penalty for ‘dangerous driving’ after he spun in the pit lane during Free Practice 2.
The seven-time champion Hamilton’s first lap was at a decent pace, he improved on his second run but was still a quarter second off the pace of leader Max Verstappen. The reigning world champion then pushed too hard in an attempt to gain clear track in his out lap on his third and final attempt, which took too much out of his tires and he failed to improve as he went wide at turn 9 thus dashing any hopes of securing pole position.
McLaren’s Lando Norris finished strongly at fourth, which will become third for the second time at this track, ahead of the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez who will finish fifth but will start 4th after the penalties are applied to Bottas.
Pierre Gasly showed strong pace throughout the session and took the fastest lap time in Q2, qualifying sixth for AlphaTauri, his sixth top-six start in eight Grand Prix weekends. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was seventh, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda who made his second Q3 appearance in the last three Grand Prix but is under investigation for allegedly blocking Bottas when he was on his second flying lap.
Fernando Alonso was once again Alpine’s sole representative in Q3, after a dismal performance by teammate Esteban Ocon who was knocked out in the first part of the session itself, with the Spaniard ninth Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll out-qualified teammate Sebastian Vettel for the first time in four races to close out the top 10.
Earlier, George Russell missed out on a maiden Q3 appearance for his Williams outfit as he missed out on making the top 10 by a mere 0.008s following an astonishing lap in Q2.
INDIA: The abundance of heavy metals in the oldest metal-poor stars that are born from the expelled remnants of first stars has intrigued astronomers for a long time as the already known process of reaction of chemical elements by nuclear fusion within stars (nucleosynthesis) didn’t reap the desired answers. Scientists have made a breakthrough about this large quantity of heavy metals in a nucleosynthetic process called the i-process.
Earlier Scientists discovered that heavier elements are created mainly by two processes of nucleosynthesis– slow and rapid neutron-capture processes which are termed as s and r-process respectively. The s-process elements were thought to be produced in low and intermediate-mass stars towards the final stage of their stellar evolution. The proposed sites of the r-process are exotic proceedings such as supernovae and neutron star mergers.
The CEMP stars presenting enhancements of s-process and r-process elements are known as CEMP-s and CEMP-r stars respectively. However, there is another amazing subclass of CEMP stars, known as CEMP-r/s stars which exhibit enhancement of both s- and r-process elements whose creation had remained a puzzle.
A group of scientists comprising of Prof. Aruna Goswami, from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, her doctoral student Partha Goswami and Master’s student Rajeev Rathour has achieved a significant advancement in unscrambling this puzzle. In a recent study published by the team in the journal, ‘Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A), they have found a process which they called i-process operating at neutron densities intermediate to the densities for s-process and r-process is responsible for the peculiar abundance pattern of CEMP-r/s stars. They also proposed new stellar classification criteria based on the abundances of barium, lanthanum, and europium to distinguish between the CEMP-s and CEMP-r/s stars.
The team analyzed high quality, high-resolution spectra obtained from the five CEMP stars acquired from the 2-m Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) at the Indian Astronomical Observatory, 1.52-m Telescope at the European Southern Observatory at La Silla, Chile, and the 8.2-m SUBARU Telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
With the help of a large sample of CEMP-s and CEMP-r/s stars from the literature, the IIA team has significantly analyzed the different criteria used by various authors for CEMP-s and CEMP-r/s . They found that none of the existing classification criteria was efficient enough in distinguishing the CEMP-s and CEMP-r/s stars and hence their new proposed criteria can successfully fill this gap.
Partha Goswami said, “This scheme of classification is based on the abundance ratios of three very crucial neutron-capture elements barium, lanthanum, and europium and can be effectively used to distinguish the CEMP-s and CEMP-r/s stars”.
FRANCE: Max Verstappen set the tone ahead of qualifying for the French Grand Prix by clocking a stunning 1m 31.300s lap, a whopping margin of 0.747s ahead of his closest rival Valtteri Bottas. Meanwhile, Carlos Sainz finished an impressive third for Ferrari.
With Ferrari lamenting a poor performance which they labeled as “back to reality” on Friday, the team was jubilated to see Sainz take P3, with the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez coming 4th. Hamilton, who swapped the W12 chassis with teammate Bottas for this weekend, could only manage P5, almost a second behind Verstappen’s time and closed ahead of the McLaren of Lando Norris in P6.
The Alpines slipped back on Saturday morning after an amazing performance on Friday with Fernando Alonso heading teammate Esteban Ocon in P7 and P8, with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the top 10.
Charles Leclerc finished the session in P11, ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi and the Aston Martins of Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel, who ran the white marked hard compound tired in the session, in P13 and P14. Kimi Raikkonen was 15th and ahead of George Russell, 16th who drove only for the second time this weekend, after handing his car over to Roy Nissany on Friday morning.
The second AlphaTauri of Yuki Tsunoda came home in P17 with the Japanese driver getting angry after having a lap deleted for track limit violations. The second Williams of Nicholas Latifi and then the leading Haas of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin rounded off the field.
Verstappen pips title rival Hamilton to pole in action-filled French GP qualifying
The French track, which returned to the international racing calendar in 2018, has mostly been a Mercedes’ hunting ground with Hamilton taking pole and wins in every edition so far, but this time Red Bull was the one who seemed the strongest.
Verstappen set the early pace in Q3 by going almost four-tenths of a second quicker than Hamilton, but things got spicier in the second runs as Hamilton went quickest in the first sector. Verstappen responded with a purple second and final sector to better his time and take his second pole position of the season.
Hamilton finished second alongside the Dutchman in the front row, with Valtteri Bottas taking third as Mercedes put up an improved performance after two tumultuous weekends in Monaco and Azerbaijan.
Sergio Perez came fourth, half a second behind Red Bull teammate Verstappen, while Carlos Sainz out qualified the other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc for the second time this season as he ended up fifth. Pierre Gasly gave the French fans in the grandstands a treat with P6, in what is his fifth top-six starting position in seven races so far this year. Leclerc, pole-sitter in the last two races, could only muster up a sub-par P7 as he was beaten by a teammate for the first time at Paul Ricard.
It was a tough day for McLaren, as even though they got both cars into Q3, they were at the bottom of the top 10 with Lando Norris eighth and Daniel Ricciardo a tenth further back in 10th. They were separated by Fernando Alonso being the only Alpine driver in Q3 in the team’s home race, with the Spaniard making four Q3 appearances in seven races this season. His teammate and home favorite Ocon will start 11th.
Earlier in Q1 Yuki Tsunoda lost control of his AlphaTauri at Turn 2 and slid into the barriers bringing out the first red flag of the qualification session within 6 minutes of the start of the first session. Later in the same session, Mick Schumacher hit the barriers hard and that meant everyone’s final runs had to be aborted, which resulted in him grabbing a spot in Q2 and his best starting position P14 at the expense of other drivers like Lance Stroll and Kimi Raikkonen who missed out on putting up a competitive lap time.
At the end of qualification, pole-sitter Max Verstappen was quoted saying, “So far it’s been a really positive weekend on a track where it’s normally been a bit difficult for us. I think yesterday, FP2 was a bit of a turnaround and just made it even better today so of course, to get pole position was really nice.”
FRANCE: Valtteri Bottas continued Mercedes’ record of leading every session at the Circuit Paul Ricard since 2018 with the Finnish driver comfortably leading the Free Practice 1 time sheets of the French Grand Prix weekend with team mate Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen taking second and third spot respectively in an incident-filled opening session.
Bottas topped the clocks with a time of 1min 33.448seconds which was around three seconds slower than his Free Practice 2 topping time from 2019. Bottas finished the session at 0.335s over Hamilton who came 2nd, in what would have been a refreshing tonic for the Finn after he finished the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in a lowly P12.
Bottas, using a new W12 chassis this weekend, was also 0.432s ahead of Verstappen, with the Mercedes seeming to have the early advantage over Red Bull as F1 returns to a more conventional circuit, with Verstappen complaining a lack of front end turn-in grip on his RB16B while Verstappen’s team mate and Azerbaijan Grand Prix winner Sergio Perez was further three-tenths back in P4.
There was a spin within one minute of the lights going green at Paul Ricard with Haas’ Mick Schumacher spinning his VF-21 at Turn 3 and lightly scratching the wall. It proved to be the first of many incidents in FP1. Sebastian Vettel had the biggest moment when he spun his car backwards into the wall at Turn 11, while there would also be off-track moments at Turn 2 for Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly, Kimi Raikkonen, Verstappen and Bottas, while another rookie driver, Yuki Tsunoda spun at Turn 15.
When the dust settled from all that off-track action, it was newly re-signed Alpine driver Esteban Ocon who claimed an impressive 5th, just over a tenth off Perez, while McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo took 6th. Fernando Alonso confirmed the pace of the Alpine at their home race by taking P7, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Gasly in 8th with Lando Norris and Tsunoda rounding out the top 10. Charles Leclerc struggled in his Ferrari SF21, leaving the Baku pole sitter P11, ahead of the Alfa Romeo pairing of Antonio Giovinazzi and Raikkonen, followed by the Aston Martin duo of Lance Stroll and Vettel. Sainz’s spin at Turn 2 ruined a set of his soft tyres, leaving the Spaniard down in P16 ahead of the leading Williams of Nicholas Latifi. Nikita Mazepin led the way for Haas, about six tenths ahead of Schumacher, while Williams’ Roy Nissany who is in for George Russell in FP1 rounded out the timesheets.
Pos
No
Driver
Car
Time
Gap
Laps
1
77
Bottas
Mercedes
1:33.448
24
2
44
Hamilton
Mercedes
1:33.783
+0.335s
21
3
33
Verstappen
Red Bull Racing Honda
1:33.880
+0.432s
23
4
11
Perez
Red Bull Racing Honda
1:34.193
+0.745s
25
5
31
Ocon
Alpine Renault
1:34.880
+0.881s
25
6
3
Ricciardo
McLaren Mercedes
1:34.644
+1.196s
24
7
14
Alonso
Alpine Renault
1:34.693
+1.245s
21
8
10
Gasly
AlphaTauri Honda
1:34.699
+1.251s
20
9
4
Norris
McLaren Mercedes
1:34.707
+1.259s
21
10
22
Tsunoda
AlphaTauri Honda
1:34.847
+1.399s
22
11
16
Leclerc
Ferrari
1:34.950
+1.502s
24
12
99
Giovinazzi
Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari
1:35.116
+1.668s
23
13
7
Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari
1:35.135
+1.687s
20
14
18
Lance Stroll
Aston Martin Mercedes
1:35.275
+1.827s
23
15
5
Sebastian Vettel
Aston Martin Mercedes
1:35.289
+1.841s
16
16
55
Carlos Sainz
Ferrari
1:35.342
+1.894s
24
17
6
Nicholas Latifi
Williams Mercedes
1:35.612
+2.164s
22
18
9
Nikita Mazepin
Haas Ferrari
1:36.651
+3.302s
24
19
47
Mick Schumacher
Haas Ferrari
1:37.329
+3.881s
14
20
45
Roy Nissany
Williams Mercedes
1:37.881
+4.433s
16
Verstappen tops second Free practice at Circuit Paul Ricard, just 0.008s quicker than Bottas:
Max Verstappen set the benchmark in second practice for the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard, the Red Bull driver finishing just ahead of FP1 leader Valtteri Bottas and his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen began on the yellow marked medium tyres and damaged his front wing on the Turn 2 kerbs, bringing out a Virtual Safety Car after 15 minutes, but shrugged that off to set the quickest time of 1m32.872s on a soft set of tyres, just 0.008s faster than Bottas’ best time, which was set on medium tyres.
Reigning champion Hamilton was 0.253s behind Verstappen, having complained of car balance issues during his race simulations. Incidentally, the Silver Arrows swapped Hamilton and Bottas’ chassis for this weekend, something they said is customary at this point of the season, but insisted that there would be no performance difference due to the swap. As for Azerbaijan GP winner Sergio Perez, he was 12th in FP2 for Red Bull.
In P4 was Fernando Alonso for Alpine with his team mate and home racer Esteban Ocon P6, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc splitting them for fifth place. Ocon’s compatriot Pierre Gasly, his AlphaTauri having received a new Honda engine this weekend, as did the Red Bull pair, finished 7th ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in P8. Sainz ran medium and soft tyres in this session while Leclerc used hards and softs in a split strategy by Ferrari.
Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen finished the session in P9 and McLaren’s Lando Norris in P10 with the Briton 0.95s off Verstappen’s leading time. Norris found himself sandwiched between the two Alfas as Antonio Giovinazzi took P11. Behind 12th-place Red Bull racer Perez was AlphaTauri rookie Yuki Tsunoda, and Daniel Ricciardo in 13th with high mileage on soft tyres in this session for McLaren.
Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel finished 15th in FP2 without any incidents, nearly two-tenths faster than team mate Lance Stroll who finished 16th. Apart from Bottas, they were the only two drivers to have set their quickest times on mediums rather than softs. Behind the Astons was the Williams pair, George Russell (17th) just 0.065s faster than Nicholas Latifi in 18th, while Haas rounded out the standings, 19th-place Mick Schumacher 0.039s ahead of 20th-place Nikita Mazepin.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkNoPrivacy policy
