Month: October 2020

Pirelli has finalized its plans for F1 teams to test a series of prototype tyres at next week’s Portuguese Grand Prix at Portimão.

The test will take place on Friday afternoon during FP2 and will involve all teams and a batch of 30 sets of prototype tyres.

Earlier this year, the FIA decided to extend the specification of this year’s tyres into 2021, but next year’s 10% downforce cut as mandated by the regulations has prompted Pirelli to potentially implement a construction update.

Portimão is the Italian supplier’s last opportunity to test its prototype rubber as any specification changes must be signed off by the FIA by November 1.

“The target is trying to develop a tyre with a higher level of integrity,” said Pirelli F1 boss Mario Isola, quoted by Motorsport.com.

“Which means that we can use it at a lower pressure. This together with a reduction in downforce that is planned for next year is helping the tyre to work in a better way, and therefore reduce the overheating.

“It cannot be a complete new product as we only have the chance to test the prototypes in Portimão, that is also a new track, and a track that’s been resurfaced.”

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Teams will devote 30 minutes to testing the new tyres in the Friday afternoon practice session, with each team running three sets split among its drivers.

“We are planning to bring three sets of tyres per teams,” added Isola. “Which means 30 sets of prototypes.

“That doesn’t mean 30 different prototypes – we will have probably something in the range of 8-10.

“I don’t want to give you the exact number, simply because the test is blind for the teams, and any information I release means that the teams are making calculations, ‘I tried this one, and the others were trying another one,’ and so on.

“We are going to provide the run plans to the teams. In general they are going to run the same number of laps on both cars. The approach is to run one car on a back-to-back, and one car on a long run, within the 30 minutes, so it’s not very long.

Read also: Pirelli denies 2021 downforce cut done for ‘safety reasons’

“The plan is that the car that is running the back-to-back has a baseline and a prototype, and the other car has one set for the long run.

“We have to work in a way that is trying to preserve the sporting equity – we cannot give to one team 10 prototypes to test, and to another one and that’s all. So we are trying to do this plan in a fair way.”

Isola admitted that a short 30-minute window of testing provided a few challenges, while rain would likely force Pirelli to scrap the test altogether.

“In half an hour it’s not easy,” said the Italian. “We are a bit worried about traffic, we are a bit worried about many things that can happen – maybe the circuit isn’t in great condition at the beginning of FP2. We need to go there and see what happens.”

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Dietmar Hamann has warned Liverpool that Jurgen Klopp will either be “lying on the beach” or managing the Germany national team before 2025.

The German boss – who has a contract at Anfield until 2024 – led the Reds to their first Premier League title in 30 years last season as they won the league with seven games to spare.

Their Premier League triumph came after winning the Champions League at the end of 2018/19, beating Tottenham 2-0 in the Madrid final.

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By winning the Champions League and Premier League, Klopp has secured a godlike status around Merseyside and he still has at least four years to cement his place in Liverpool folklore.

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However, Hamann reckons it’s unlikely that Klopp will still be at the club in 2025.

“It is astonishing that Jürgen Klopp has already been a coach at Liverpool for five years,” Hamann told SportBILD (via Sport Witness).

“But when you are successful, time goes by faster.

“Since the Champions League victory against Tottenham in 2019 and the first title this summer for Liverpool after 30 years, this coach is a living legend.

“I would wish for Liverpool that he would still be the coach in 2025.

“But either Klopp will be lying on the beach, or he will be the coach of the German national team.”

Meanwhile, pundits have already started to write off Liverpool’s season without Virgil van Dijk, who sustained an injury in the Merseyside derby.

Klopp’s mood has not been helped by the fact he will have to pair midfielder Fabinho alongside Joe Gomez at centre-back against Ajax on Wednesday night as Joel Matip did not travel as a precaution after also sustaining a knock on Saturday.

“I am old enough. I know how the world is. I know what people do. A lot of people speak before they think,” Klopp said ahead of the match in Amsterdam.

“We have a situation. We are here without Virgil van Dijk and Joel Matip and we will still give it a try. What can we do now?

“People can say what they want, it is a free world, but three weeks ago, they said we would run away (with the league).

“Now, three weeks later, we are not even in contention for anything any more. That’s football. That’s the world right now. We cannot be that excited. We have to stay calm.

“Why should I think the boys cannot deal with the situation? But the number of questions you ask suggests you think we will all struggle with it.

“So we have to prove you wrong? I am not even interested in proving you wrong. I am only interested in the best for Liverpool and for my players.

“Hopefully the results in the next few weeks will calm you all slightly down but I cannot promise it.”

 

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum were united in their condemnation of the Everton tackles which sidelined Virgil Van Dijk for several months and ruled Thiago Alcantara out of their Champions League opener against Ajax.

Van Dijk’s knee injury is a huge blow to their long-term hopes of defending the Premier League title and going deep in Europe again and the manner of his injury still rankles within the Reds squad.

His Holland team-mate Wijnaldum said Jordan Pickford’s high challenge was “stupid” and that Everton “take it way too far in the games we play against them”.

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“We know it is a derby and everyone wants to win so sometimes you go a little bit over the top but it was too much,” said the Dutchman.

“The tackle from Richarlison on Thiago was also a nasty one.

“Accidents can always happen in football, you can be unlucky with a tackle and injure someone but the way they were doing it is completely unacceptable.”

Klopp said both challenges were “difficult to accept”.

“Injuries happen in football, very often in challenges but often both players just try to play the ball,” he said.

“That was not the case in these two challenges and it makes it so different and difficult to take.”

Pundits have already started to write off Liverpool’s season without Van Dijk but that has only angered Klopp more.

His mood was not helped by the fact he will have to pair midfielder Fabinho alongside Joe Gomez at centre-back as Joel Matip did not travel as a precaution after also sustaining a knock on Saturday.

“I am old enough. I know how the world is. I know what people do. A lot of people speak before they think,” he said.

“We have a situation. We are here without Virgil van Dijk and Joel Matip and we will still give it a try. What can we do now?

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“People can say what they want, it is a free world, but three weeks ago, they said we would run away (with the league).

“Now, three weeks later, we are not even in contention for anything any more. That’s football. That’s the world right now. We cannot be that excited. We have to stay calm.

“Why should I think the boys cannot deal with the situation? But the number of questions you ask suggests you think we will all struggle with it.

“So we have to prove you wrong? I am not even interested in proving you wrong. I am only interested in the best for Liverpool and for my players.

“Hopefully the results in the next few weeks will calm you all slightly down but I cannot promise it.”

 

There are “too many negatives” for Chelsea boss Frank Lampard so far this season, according to former Blues midfielder Alan Hudson.

Chelsea were held to a 0-0 draw at home to Sevilla in the Champions League on Tuesday night, with Lampard’s regimented but uninspired Chelsea almost the exact opposite of Saturday’s sloppy but exciting Blues in the 3-3 Southampton draw.

The Blues currently sit eighth in the Premier League table, having won two, drawn two and lost one so far this season.

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And Hudson, who made 189 appearances for Chelsea in the 70s, picked out Kurt Zouma and Cesar Azpilicueta as their two weakest links.

“Werner was exceptional and probably wished he could play against Chelsea’s defence,” Hudson told CaughtOffside.

“He was the one big positive along with Havertz just behind him, but there are too many negatives for Frank who can’t see that Azpilicueta and Zouma are not good enough.

“The other teams are improving on the attacking front and these two are hopeless. Frank should’ve played young Reece James no matter that he played for England.

“He has big issues if he can’t see what I can see.”

Kepa Arrizabalaga has come in for criticism this term but Hudson reckons it’s “too easy” to blame the Spaniard, he added: “You shouldn’t have to rely on your goalkeeper if you set up your midfield and back four well enough.

“Frank can’t do that. It’s too easy to blame the keeper.

“Frank seems to have clouded judgement about his young starlets, as I don’t think they’re everything he thinks they are. He has a lot of problems and hasn’t addressed his defenders at all.”

 

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Rio Ferdinand thinks Man Utd boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer must “reward” Axel Tuanzebe for his brilliant performance against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday by starting him in their next fixture too.

Tuanzebe, Luke Shaw and Victor Lindelof started in a back three for Man Utd with Eric Bailly and Harry Maguire missing from the squad that travelled in Paris.

The Red Devils had been on course for a morale-boosting start to Group H rather than a victorious one after Anthony Martial’s second-half own goal cancelled out stand-in skipper Bruno Fernandes’ spot-kick.

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But 19 months on from securing their historic last-16 comeback triumph in the French capital, Marcus Rashford struck late to secure another stunning victory at PSG as Man Utd ran out 2-1 winners in their Champions League opener.

Man Utd have struggled of late defensively but Tuanzebe could now be the answer to their problems after a commanding display.

When asked on BT Sport if Tuanzebe was now undroppable, Ferdinand replied: “Yes. Ole has just said it’s two of the best two strikers in the world, he snuffed out danger many a time today.

“You have to reward performances like that. He’s had a hard time with injuries – first game in 10 months – to come in and play like that, from in out of the cold, you deserve to be rewarded. But Ole is the man to make that decision.”

Ferdinand added: “This is where Man United have struggled in the last six to 12 months, in them areas chasing players down the channels, they can’t stay with them and then obviously that opens up the back four or back three. But he was smelling danger.”

And his fellow pundit Owen Hargreaves agrees and thinks it will now be hard to dislodge Tuanzebe.

“Good luck getting this guy out of the team,” said Hargreaves.

“This guy… I love him. He’s a good athlete, he makes good decisions, physically he’s got a good presence, he wasn’t fazed by Mbappe or Neymar. I think he grew into the occasion.

“We saw a couple of years ago Scott McTominay came here and put in a top performance. This young man… looks, he’s not getting out of the side.”

 

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A documentary on the intertwined career of the Undertaker and Kane will debut at the Austin (TX) Film Festival & Conference in October before debuting on WWE Network the following month.

“Brothers of Destruction” will close out the week-long conference on the night of Thursday, October 29th while the Network debut is set for Sunday, November 15th, part of a month-long celebration of Undertaker’s 30 years in pro wrestling (“30 Days of the Deadman”).

The documentary description from WWE: “The film breaks new ground as cameras capture a candid discussion between The Undertaker and Kane about their storied careers for the first time. Intertwined since Kane was introduced as The Undertaker’s long-lost brother in 1997, The Big Red Machine and The Deadman have been both bitter enemies and fierce allies, but their relationship never failed to captivate the WWE Universe, resulting in one of sports-entertainment’s most incredible legacies.”

WWE debuted the well-recieved Undertaker documentary series earlier this year on the Network with Undertaker (Mark Calaway) doing a slew of mainstream interviews to help promote it, something he had been reluctant to do for decades due to the character.