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Diasabra 17 aPriL 2021

Mercedes one-two in practice at Imola, problems for Red Bull

(AP) — Mercedes topped this season so hopefully we Red Bull driver Max Ver- and Imola. That led to a temporary sus-
both practice sessions have time to fix it ... We still stappen, who looks set to be pension of the session with
for the Emilia-Romagna don’t think we are the fastest Hamilton’s closest rival this “I like Italy, the food is good about 22 minutes left. The
Grand Prix as Red Bull car and we really need to im- season, had a problem with and I enjoy being here but the red flags came out again
endured a torrid day on prove on that on Saturday.” his car early in the second driving part is not the lucki- shortly after the end of the
Friday. practice and his session end- est," Verstappen said. “We just session as Nikita Mazepin
Pierre Gasly, who briefly ed abruptly 10 minutes in. have to look at what we can spun off and crashed into the
Red Bull was favored head- separated the two Mercedes do better tomorrow. barriers at the pit lane exit.
ing to Imola but fortunes drivers, was .078 slower than “It looks like the drive shaft
swung in Mercedes' favor as Bottas in the second practice. has given away. We’re just "Of course it would have There were more red flags
the reigning championship trying to understand what has been better to have the ses- in the afternoon forcing the
team managed a one-two in It is his AlphaTauri team’s happened," Red Bull team sion but I don’t think missing session to come to a prema-
both practices while its rival home race, with its Faenza principal Christian Horner running in FP2 is the end of ture end, approximately four
finished each session with base located 15 kilometers said. the world as we know what minutes before schedule, af-
just one driver. from the track we need to do tomorrow. We ter Charles Leclerc crashed
“We will be inspecting all the just have to focus on our- his Ferrari into the barriers.
Valtteri Bottas was fastest in “The team have worked real- other parts as well. The kerbs selves and make sure we get
both, edging Lewis Hamilton ly hard to try and understand are pretty aggressive here so the best out of our package.” The Ferrari drivers, Carlos
by just .010 seconds in the what happened at the last we just need to understand Sainz and Leclerc, completed
second practice and .041 in race, where we were weak what has happened.” Verstappen’s teammate Ser- the top five in second prac-
the first. and how we could tweak the gio Perez failed to finish the tice. There was less than one
setup, but the track has come Verstappen had been third- morning practice after an second separating first and
“The weekend has started to our direction too,” Hamil- fastest in the morning, .058 incident with Esteban Ocon ninth.
in a positive way, I’m much ton said. behind Bottas. heading into the Villeneuve There is a third and final
happier with the balance of chicane. practice session on Saturday
the car,” Bottas said. "The car “We have good pace but we It was the latest in a long run ahead of qualifying.
feels better, we still have the have not seen the best from of bad luck for the 23-year- The rear left tire of Perez’s The Emilia-Romagna GP is
same type of issues as in Bah- Red Bull yet because they old in Italy. Verstappen has car was ripped off and the the second race of the For-
rain but less so. have had messy sessions. It never finished an F1 race in front of Ocon’s Alpine suf- mula One season. Hamilton
will be interesting to see to- the country higher than fifth fered heavy damage after the won the opener in Bahrain
"Still not perfect but we are morrow how quick they are.” and retired in all three events pair came together. last month, just ahead of Ver-
only on event two out of 23 last year at Monza, Mugello stappen after a thrilling duel.

Chen tops Hanyu to win men's free skate at World Team Trophy

(AP) — Three-time world champion Nathan “I don’t think I would have been able to perform ary.
Chen won the free skate at the figure skating as well as I have over the past few years had it not
World Team Trophy on Friday to continue his been for these guys pushing me forward so a lot of With less than a year to go until the Beijing Olym-
dominance of two-time Olympic gold medal- credit goes to them,” Chen said. pics, many of the world’s top skaters are in Osaka,
ist Yuzuru Hanyu. eager to get in another competition after several
Russia led the competition after the second day International Skating Union events were cancelled
First after the short program, Chen opened with with 91 points, eight ahead of the United States. this season due to the pandemic.
a quadruple flip and landed a quad salchow in the Japan was third with 78 points.
first half of his routine set to a selection of music The competition concludes Saturday with the
by Philip Glass. Russia finished first in the free dance to claim the women’s free skate and the pairs free skate.
ice dance gold.
Winner of the past five U.S. titles, Chen landed
two more quadruple toeloops as part of combina- Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, first after
tion jumps to score 203.24 points. the rhythm dance, received 130.15 points in the
free dance. Charlene Guignard and Marco Fab-
Hanyu, who was second after the short program, bri of Italy were second with 124.75 followed by
opened with a quad loop but could only manage a Americans Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker
single salchow instead of a planned quad salchow with 110.16.
on his second jump. He added two quad toeloops
later in his program and finished with 193.76 Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov of
points. Russia were first after the pairs short program with
73.77 points. Nicole Della Monica and Matteo
Russian skater Mikhail Kolyada was third with Guarise of Italy were second with 66.09 points fol-
180.72 points. lowed by Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan
with 65.82.
Chen became the first American since Scott Ham-
ilton to win a third consecutive World Figure Skat- Each country sends two men, two women, one pair
ing Championships men’s title in Stockholm, and one ice-dancing entry. The points will be com-
Sweden, last month where he also beat Hanyu. bined across the four disciplines with the highest
point total winning.
Chen has not lost a competition since the 2018
Olympics. The World Team Trophy was first held in 2009.
Team USA has won four of the previous six com-
The biennial World Team Trophy features the six petitions with the other two won by Japan. The
best figure skating teams from the 2020-21 season. U.S. is the defending champion.

Teams from Japan, the United States, Canada, A limited number of fans were allowed into Maru-
France, Russia and Italy are taking part. zen Intec Arena even though Osaka is experiencing
a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Chen said he appreciated the rare opportunity to
compete in a team format. On Friday, Japan’s second-largest city recorded
more than 1,209 cases, its highest total since Janu-