Fernando Alonso hopes to be racing for McLaren at this weekend's Chinese Formula One Grand Prix but the Spaniard says he is taking nothing for granted ahead of a fitness test at the Shanghai circuit. The double world champion fractured his ribs in a crash at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 20 and the governing FIA's medical team then ruled him out of the subsequent race in Bahrain. He will undergo more tests at the Chinese circuit on Thursday before the third round of the 21-race season. "It was disappointing to be told I couldn't race in Bahrain, but I fully respected the decision of the FIA medical team," he said on Tuesday in a team preview for the race. "While I hope I'll be back in the cockpit on Friday (for practice), until I get the all-clear from the doctors to race, whenever that may be, we cannot assume anything.
Formula One will revert to its 2015 qualifying format at next week's Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai and for the remainder of the season, the governing FIA said in a statement on Thursday after backing down in the face of opposition from teams.
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel has joined the bandwagon of drivers opposing the newly proposed aggregate qualifying format of the Formula One. According to the latest qualifying format, a driver's two best laps in each of the three knockout sessions will be combined in order to determine the grid position. Meanwhile, the 90-second qualifying format that saw the drivers get eliminated one by one rather than being dismissed at the end of each session in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and in the Bahrain Grand Prix would be dropped. Hitting back at the new format, the Ferrari driver compared the new system with the circus and insisted that the F1 should focus only on racing, the Guardian reported Echoing similar views, Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff described the new format as `madness` and said that all the teams wanted to revert back to that of the previous season.
Ferrari are closer to Mercedes than results have suggested in this season's two races and look like posing a real challenge, according to Formula One world championship leader Nico Rosberg.
Formula One world championship leader Nico Rosberg's contract with the Mercedes team has shown up in the Panama Papers, leaked documents which reveal offshore financial dealings, German broadcaster ARD reported on Monday.
Lalita Babar qualified for the women's 3000m steeplechase final after finishing fourth in the qualifying Heat 2 with a national record time, while compatriot Sudha Singh was eliminated in the Olympic Games on Saturday.
Industrial Development Bank of India is looking to expand its presence overseas, including through opening branches in Singapore and Bahrain, a top bank official said.
Formula One's new qualifying format was given a second chance in Bahrain on Saturday after flopping on its debut in Australia but team bosses and drivers declared it as bad as before.
Aggrieved McLaren boss Ron Dennis says Formula One teams must decide whether a driver is fit to race, rather than the governing body's doctors, after Fernando Alonso was barred from the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Sebastian Vettel led a Ferrari one-two at the top of the timesheets in final practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday, ending the stranglehold of previously dominant champions Mercedes. Vettel lapped the Sakhir Circuit in a best time of one minute 31.683 seconds, 0.040 faster than team mate Kimi Raikkonen on the supersoft tyres. It was the first time this season that any driver from outside the Mercedes pairing of Nico Rosberg and triple world champion Lewis Hamilton had ended practice on top. Hamilton was quickest in all three sessions in Australia two weeks ago while championship frontrunner Rosberg led his team mate in Bahrain practices one and two on Friday. Rosberg was third fastest in practice three, his time of 1:32.104 slower than Friday when he did 1:31.001, with Hamilton fourth.
The condition of three injured Indians, being treated in a government hospital in Manama, was satisfactory.
The boat, whose capacity was 100 people, was overloaded.
His Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa joins him on the front row while Briton Jenson Button, in a Honda, and Renault's world champion Fernando Alonso line up together on the second row.
Slated to be in India on December 8, Carter would travel to Japan, Bahrain, Israel, Italy and Great Britain before returning to the US on December 16. This is for the first time that an outgoing American Defence Secretary has included India in his itinerary for the final overseas trip.
'I'm the first one to say we shouldn't be speaking bad about things on TV, but I think the new qualifying format is pretty rubbish'
The ban on poultry imports will not be significant for the countries since only eggs are imported from India.
Take your pick from these four releases.
'We are trying passionately to protect those clean athletes who are going to Rio 2016'
The massive exercise code-named Iron First 2016 would involve the participation of 181 aircraft departing from multiple bases, and demonstrate a synchronized aerial ballet that would showcase its deadly combat capability over the entire spectrum of aerial operations.
The two men from Kerala went missing on Tuesday.
The man, identified as Kishore Kumar Kombath, had gone missing from his Riyadh home on May 15.
Gianni Infantino's election as FIFA president should give football's governing body the time it needs to begin tackling the corruption and other problems that have dragged it into the worst crisis in its 112-year history, current and former officials said.
Asian football said it was looking forward to working with new FIFA President Gianni Infantino, despite the region's two candidates losing out to the Swiss in Friday's election, and called for unity to help push the reform process forward.
Key developments and reaction when world football's governing body FIFA elected Gianni Infantino as new president and voted in a series of reforms at its congress on Friday
Selected quotes from Swiss Gianni Infantino's first news conference after the former UEFA general secretary was elected president of scandal-hit world soccer's governing body FIFA on Friday:
Tokyo Sexwale withdrew from the FIFA presidential race minutes before the vote on Friday, announcing his decision at the very end of his candidate's speech.
Prince Ali is one of five candidates standing to replace Sepp Blatter to try to lead FIFA out of its crisis.
Larsen & Toubro has won about Rs 70.3 crore [Rs 703 million) ($15.6 million)] contract from Radissons Group for the construction of a 15-storey hotel and service apartments in Bahrain.
Indian grapplers finished their campaign at the Asian Wrestling Championship in Bangkok, Thailand with nine medals, including a gold, in the five-day event.
Twenty garment factories have closed down in the last four years, leaving only eight operational
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday
Commonwealth Games silver-medallist L Devendro Singh (49kg) stormed into the semi-finals, while Manoj Kumar (64kg) and Sumit Sangwan (81kg) entered the quarters to be just one win away from clinching Olympic berths at the International Boxing Association's (AIBA) World Qualifying Tournament in Baku on Tuesday.
More than 2500 women from 14 countries contributed to the blanket.
A car company 'Oscar Rent A Car' alleged that Balakrishnan had used a car for one year in 1994 without paying the rent, but the Indian claimed that the company gave him the car to use in return for jobs he did for it.
Banned European soccer boss president Michel Platini has withdrawn his candidacy from the race for the presidency of soccer's scandal-plagued governing body FIFA, he told French sports daily L'Equipe on Thursday.
The absence of top stars took some sheen away but India's record-breaking medal haul and a maiden top-of-the-table finish made the just-concluded 22nd Asian Athletics Championship here a memorable one.
Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, killed in a United States airstrike in Balochistan, was a frequent flyer and used a Pakistani passport for over nine years
English driver Jenson Button feels with engine problems sorted out, the team is on the road to recovery.