Monday, September 29, 2008
3:46 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Fernando Alonso remains non-committal on his future with Renault despite posting his first victory in a year at the Singapore Grand Prix.
The two-time world champion Spaniard has yet to finalise his plans for 2009, but he is known to be biding his time before deciding what to do.
With no seats remaining available at Ferrari or McLaren Mercedes, he has been linked with a possible move to BMW Sauber, but may yet stay with Renault after breaking his win drought.
Team boss Flavio Briatore insisted the future was still unclear.
"Well, it's not a victory that changes a situation," the Italian said.
"We have a good relationship with Fernando, we are talking together, and we will be happy with his decision.
"That is all that I can say for the moment."
Alonso also declined to shed any light on what he might do, denying that he was now beginning to prepare for Renault's 2009 campaign.
"No, I didn't say that," he said when asked.
"It's not changing the decision for next year. As I've always said, Renault will be my first priority because I feel I'm at home in this team."
Prior to his win here after starting from 15th on the grid, the 27-year-old had struggled to make an impact this year, with a fourth place his previous best result.
His unexpected victory in an incident-packed night race came as a relief.
"I think I need a couple of days to realise we won a race this year," he said.
"It seems impossible all through the season to be close to the top guys and here suddenly we have been competitive from Friday. It's fantastic."
3:45 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Fernando Alonso remains non-committal on his future with Renault despite posting his first victory in a year at the Singapore Grand Prix.
The two-time world champion Spaniard has yet to finalise his plans for 2009, but he is known to be biding his time before deciding what to do.
With no seats remaining available at Ferrari or McLaren Mercedes, he has been linked with a possible move to BMW Sauber, but may yet stay with Renault after breaking his win drought.
Team boss Flavio Briatore insisted the future was still unclear.
"Well, it's not a victory that changes a situation," the Italian said.
"We have a good relationship with Fernando, we are talking together, and we will be happy with his decision.
"That is all that I can say for the moment."
Alonso also declined to shed any light on what he might do, denying that he was now beginning to prepare for Renault's 2009 campaign.
"No, I didn't say that," he said when asked.
"It's not changing the decision for next year. As I've always said, Renault will be my first priority because I feel I'm at home in this team."
Prior to his win here after starting from 15th on the grid, the 27-year-old had struggled to make an impact this year, with a fourth place his previous best result.
His unexpected victory in an incident-packed night race came as a relief.
"I think I need a couple of days to realise we won a race this year," he said.
"It seems impossible all through the season to be close to the top guys and here suddenly we have been competitive from Friday. It's fantastic."
3:41 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Kimi Raikkonen has conceded that any hope he had of defending his world title has evaporated after his disastrous Singapore Grand Prix.
The Ferrari star finished outside the points for his fourth consecutive race after ramming his car into the barriers with just four laps left when he was in fifth.
It leaves the Finn 27 points adrift of leader Lewis Hamilton with three races to go.
"It was a pretty small chance anyhow," he said of his title chances.
"I'm not sad for my fifth place but I'm sorry for the team to lose those points. But for sure we'll try to do better next race."
Raikkonen has not won a race since the Spanish Grand Prix in April and the last time he scored any championship points was at Germany in July, when he finished sixth.
But his position at Ferrari is guaranteed after signing a new contract and he vowed to do all he could to help the team win the constructors' title.
"I am not used to giving up and I will do my very best to try and help the team reach its targets," he told reporters.
With teammate Felipe Massa also finishing outside the points, there is every chance that Raikkonen will be under orders to help the Brazilian in his bid to win the drivers' title.
Massa is seven points behind McLaren's Hamilton.
"I know what the team wants -- they want to win the world championship," he said.
"We will see what happens. I'm trying to win races too and we will see what happens. I'm out of the championship anyhow."
He added that he crashed as he tried to pass Timo Glock to lift himself into fourth position.
"I was trying to attack Glock in case he might make a mistake but I went slightly wide at the chicane, jumping over the kerb, and when the car landed I lost control and ended up in the barriers," he said.
"Clearly, morale is not high today."
2:44 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 28 - Nico Rosberg was a relieved man on Sunday after the Williams driver risked all to secure a career-best second place at Formula One's first night race in Singapore.
The German had made a poor start and dropped two places to 10th, stuck in a caravan of cars behind Toyota's Jarno Trulli and in danger of losing contact with the first eight drivers around the tight Marina Bay Street Circuit.
"My start wasn't great on the dirty side of the track," the 23-year-old told reporters. "I was stuck behind Jarno and my team told me if I didn't get past him my race was over.
"So I just had to get by him and I risked it.
"I went for it a couple of times and was pretty close. In the end, I locked up all four wheels and got past despite flat-spotting my tyres afterwards.
"I then had to do one qualifying lap after another to get clear again."
Rosberg then inherited the lead after the safety car was deployed following Nelson Piquet's crash on the 15th lap.
With leader and pole sitter Felipe Massa making a disastrous pitstop when all the leading contenders came in for a change of tyres, Rosberg was well-placed despite collecting a stop-go penalty for refuelling when the pitlane was closed.
The German had built a large enough advantage at the head of the pack to re-emerge in second place behind eventual winner Fernando Alonso.
"The safety car came out just when I was coming in and I couldn't believe it," added Rosberg, who's previous best finish was third place in this season's opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
"But it turned out well in the end and its very nice to be up here celebrating my second podium. It gives the team a big boost... not only now but for the off season.
"I think we deserve the success too. We have had a lot of bad luck, so it's nice that the luck was on our side for a change.
"Fernando was just a little bit too quick for me to go for the win, so I just made sure I could stay ahead of (third place finisher) Lewis until the end of the race."
2:42 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Ferrari world title contender Felipe Massa had a disastrous Singapore Grand Prix Sunday but refused to blame the mechanic who ruined his race.
The Brazilian, ahead of rival Lewis Hamilton at the time after 15 laps, was given the green light to leave the pits but the fuel hose was still attached as he accelerated away, spraying petrol and knocking over one of the pit crew.
Massa ended up sitting in his Ferrari at the end of the pit lane as the crew frantically ran after him and managed to pull the hose free.
But he was given a drive-through penalty for almost hitting another car as he drove away and rejoined in 18th place, ending any hope he had of making the points.
Despite the disaster, he was philosophical.
"We could have finished first and second and it could have been different," he said as he slipped seven points behind Hamilton in the drivers' standings with three races left after the Briton finished third.
"It is hard to deal with losing in this fashion a race that was within our grasp with a car that was just the way I wanted it.
"But things can change in a moment and that's what happened today.
"We are all human beings, everyone makes mistakes. I am not the sort of person who goes to a guy and fights with him.
"So I went to the guy and gave him even more motivation because we need him and we need everybody together for the last three races of the season."
It was a race to forget for Ferrari with defending world champion Kimi Raikkonen failing to finish after ramming his car into the barriers with just four laps left when he was fifth.
"A black day, there's little else to day. We are very disappointed but that doesn't mean we are downtrodden," Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali told reporters, brushing aside suggestions the mechanic would be reprimanded.
"You try to be quick, try to find the right slot for the car to be released," he said.
"It is a difficult moment. We have to have a lot of respect for these guys, who are not top drivers but are part of us."
David Coulthard in a Red Bull had a similar pit-stop blunder with his fuel hose also left on and a mechanic hurt, although his crew resolved the issue quickly.
2:39 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29 - Fernando Alonso was crowned Formula One's prince of darkness on Sunday, after streaking to the chequered flag at the sport's first night-time grand prix in Singapore.
The Spaniard's triumph at Formula One's 800th race was heralded by customary champagne-fuelled celebrations, the podium jubilation adhering to time-honoured motor racing etiquette.
But while Renault's twice former world champion will be forever noted as the Singapore GP's first winner, the F1 honour roll will not so easily record the biggest winner of the weekend -- the South-East Asian city-state whose staging of a spectacular and innovative race has left the motor racing world agog with admiration.
A jewel in the Formula One crown is how the sport's supremo Bernie Ecclestone described the Singapore race, adding that floodlit events were the future for the sport.
It helped that Sunday night's race was an action-packed roller-coaster of thrills, drama and daredevil driving.
"In this part of the world, for sure, night races will take off," the billionaire who owns the sport's commercial rights said on Sunday. Ecclestone plans to turn the Japanese GP into a night race next.
SINGAPOREAN EXTRAVAGANZA
McLaren boss Ron Dennis raved about the Singaporean extravaganza.
"It is not just a new experience," he said, "It is a real big step in the history of grand prix racing because it has been done so well.
"Everything has been proven now and we can take this model and apply it to anywhere in the world - either to bring to Europe the race at a time when people watch it, or even within Europe to make it more spectacular."
Williams team boss, the eponymous Frank Williams, echoed Ecclestone's thoughts.
"It has a good chance of challenging Monaco for being the jewel in the crown of Formula One," he told Autosport magazine's website.
From the floodlit 5.067 kilometre track, strewn across Singapore's downtown like a luminous ribbon, to the state-of-the-art facilities and clockwork organisation, the entire staging of the grand prix has been an exercise in how to get it right.
Organisers had faced a headache of eye-watering proportions in their ambitions to step into the unknown and host the extravaganza under the stars.
For the lighting alone, 1,600 lantern-like projectors were rigged up, requiring more than 100,000 metres of cabling and 240 steel pylons to illuminate the track.
FESTIVAL ATMOSPHERE
The result was some of the most spectacular images of any sporting event. Pictures of gleaming Ferraris speeding through a hi-tech cityscape vied with images of cars streaking past the world's largest observation wheel, the Singapore Flyer -- pictures which filled the media and fuelled the appetite for motor sport.
More than 300,000 people poured through the gates over three days, a sell-out, and created a festival atmosphere.
Organisers set up "hawker stalls" offering visitors a taste of authentic Singaporean food while magicians, singers and jugglers entertained the masses.
"It costs a lot of money, the lights, the circuit and the organisation. But it is a great investment for the city. And, of course, it is fantastic for F1. It is, in the best sense of the word, a highlight," Mercedes motorsport vice-president Norbert Haug said.
Even the drivers, a breed of detail-obsessed, nit-picking perfectionists, gave it the thumbs up.
"The track and the facilities here have been phenomenal," championship leader Lewis Hamilton said after finishing third.
"The organisers should be very proud of the job they have done."
Sunday, September 28, 2008
11:34 AM
SINGAPORE: Singapore is on track to complete its first permanent race circuit in Changi by 2011.
Teo Ser Luck, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development, Youth and Sports, said this on Thursday.
While Mr Teo did not reveal the number of interested tenderers, he said the government is in talks with several parties and is exploring the different possibilities of developing the facility which will be fully funded by the private sector.
He said: "We are committed to wanting to develop a race track. We are open to different ideas which are coming forward because for the government side, we want to make it successful, and it must be a win—win partnership between the consortium that ultimately wins it and operates it, and the government as well."
"We are also assessing what needs to be done in that race track. It is a seafront race track, so we must maximise that piece of land there, not just as a race track but possibly an area where tourists will come, locals will go there and everybody would look at it as more than just for car races, but it is a family outing area as well," added Mr Teo.
The race track, which will be built on a 20—hectare plot, is likely to stretch between 2.8km and 3.5km, short compared to the Singapore Grand Prix circuit of 5.067km.
"That piece of land there is quite vast, but there are other needs for that piece of land, so I would say there is no confirmation or final (decision) on size and all that, we will talk to the different parties and decide later," said Mr Teo.
The Changi race track will be capable of hosting major motorsports events, except for F1 races, which need Grade 1 circuits, and include facilities such as a racing and driver training school, and a pit building and grandstand.
Hafiz Koh, a Singapore pro race driver, said: "It’s definitely a good training ground for drivers to move forward if you have a track and you could start earlier but for GP drivers like myself, who drive GP cars, we still need to travel a lot and test different tracks. The only way you can learn is to drive different cars on different tracks."
11:32 AM
SINGAPORE, Sept 27 - Championship leader Lewis Hamilton warned on Saturday that his hopes of winning the Singapore Grand Prix could all come down to a first corner clash with title rival Felipe Massa.
The McLaren driver qualified second for Sunday's race with Ferrari's Massa capturing his fifth pole position of the season with what he called a "perfect lap" under the city-state's floodlights.
Hamilton was a massive 0.664 seconds slower than the Brazilian around the 5.067km circuit and said the city-state's tight, bumpy streets would make it virtually impossible to win Formula One's first night race if Massa made no mistakes.
The Ferrari driver won the last street circuit race, in Valencia, after the pair had again qualified first and second on the grid.
"Depends who gets to the first corner first," Hamilton told reporters on Saturday.
"You will not be able to overtake out there. It is going to be tough. just have to play it by ear."
The 23-year-old said his car had the potential to go quicker in Sunday's race, which starts at 2000 local , while Massa had already shown his hand. The Briton leads Massa by a single point in the standings with four races remaining.
"My lap was by no means perfect. Felipe said he did a perfect lap," he added.
"We are not worried, we are in a very strong position tomorrow. I am happy where I am, we're looking quite good with our strategy."
11:32 AM
SINGAPORE (AFP) - - The Singapore street circuit is too bumpy and a cause for concern, some of Formula One's top drivers say, but they are thriving on the challenge.
The island is hosting its inaugural Grand Prix and has been widely praised for putting on a spectacular show, but the city streets are proving problematic.
World championship leader Lewis Hamilton said it was twice as hard to negotiate as the more famous Monaco street circuit.
"Through certain corners there was lots of bottoming, and when you hit a bump it would throw the car around quite a bit - but it's an amazing venue," said the McLaren driver.
"It's a very physical circuit - more than I expected, actually," he added.
"You need to put a lot of work into the car to get a good lap. I'd say it requires double the energy of Monaco over a single lap. One lap around here is like two laps of Monaco."
His teammate Heikki Kovalainen is also wary about the bumps
"The track was quite bumpy. Perhaps we should also look at the pit entry - it could be quite difficult if a driver decides to pull into the pits at the last minute," he said.
"However, everything else about the track is fine. This place has got some difficult corners but I quite like all the sectors."
Ferrari's title challenger Felipe Massa agreed with Kovalainen about the pit entry.
"The entry and exit to the pit lane could turn out to be a bit critical in the race," he said.
"In general, the track surface has a lot of grip but in some points there are some bumps that are a bit of a pain.
"It is a street circuit which means you have to concentrate all the time as there is no margin for error."
Williams driver Kazuki Nakajima said the track was hugely challenging.
"It's a very tough track, hot and bumpy, probably the bumpiest track surface we encounter all season," he said.
"As a consequence, I think it will be a pretty demanding race."
His thoughts were echoed by Sebastian Vettel, who won his first ever Grand Prix in Italy earlier this month.
"Visibility is not a problem. Some places are darker than others and it's good fun," said the Toro Rosso driver of hurtling round the circuit under lights.
"The track is very difficult, but unfortunately the surface is very bumpy which does not make life easy. It is tough and demanding for both car and driver."
Thursday, September 4, 2008
10:41 PM
ACCRA (AFP) - - Time is running out in the fight against global warming, the UN's top climate change official warned as a new round of UN talks got started here Thursday.
"There is little time left to get a solid negotiating text on the table. Clearly the clock is ticking," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"People in a burning house cannot afford to lose time in an argument," he said, citing an Ashanti proverb.
The Accra gathering must strive to "reach agreement on the rules and tools" that developed countries will use to cut greenhouse gas emissions, he told more than 1,600 delegates from 160 nations.
Ghana's President John Kufuor echoed the sense of urgency in his opening remarks, noting that his country was already suffering the consequences of global warming.
Rainfall in Ghana has decreased by 20 percent in three decades, and 1,000 square kilometres (400 square miles) of fertile agricultural land in the upper Volta Delta will be lost to rising sea levels and flooding if temperatures rise at their current pace, he said.
The expert-level meeting, which runs through August 27, is the third UN climate change conference since nations committed to adopting a binding climate accord no later than December 2009.
It is the last meeting ahead of a ministerial summit in Poznan, Poland in December where rich countries will be under intense pressure to nail down near-term commitments for reducing greenhouse gases.
The Group of Eight industrialised powers pledged to halve emissions by 2050, but critics say intermediate goals are needed.
"The real political commitment is short- and medium-term," Connie Hedegaard, the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, told delegates.
"We have to speed up the pace. The negotiations here in Accra must deliver concrete results" about what technologies will be used to cut emissions, she said.
Africa is arguably the continent most vulnerable to the potential ravages of climate change, which range from extreme drought to violent storms to rising sea levels.
De Boer challenged delegates to be "ambitious," and said if they failed Africa would continue, in terms of climate change, to be the "forgotten continent".
He insisted that rich countries step up financial assistance to help Africa with global warming.
African produces the fewest emissions, he pointed out, but will likely well pay the heaviest price.
De Boer and Kufuor underlined the threat of deforestation, which is destroying one of nature's most powerful natural buffers against global warming.
The world's forests -- which are disappearing at a rate of about 30 million hectares (74 million acres) per year -- soak up more than 20 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
"Governments need to focus on reducing emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation," and on how to reward countries that protect forests, said de Boer.
The problem is particularly acute in Amazonia, central Africa and Indonesia, experts note.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an environmental group, called on the Accra meeting to adopt the Olympic motto of "faster, higher, stronger."
"Progress on substance ... must be swifter, the level of ambition by both developed and developing countries higher, and the measures to reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions stronger," said Kim Carstensen, director of the WWF's Global Climate Change Initiative.
10:40 PM
TORONTO - A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday.
Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario, told The Associated Press that the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean.
"The Markham Ice Shelf was a big surprise because it suddenly disappeared. We went under cloud for a bit during our research and when the weather cleared up, all of a sudden there was no more ice shelf. It was a shocking event that underscores the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic," said Mueller.
Mueller also said that two large sections of ice detached from the Serson Ice Shelf, shrinking that ice feature by 47 square miles _ or 60 percent _ and that the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has also continued to break up, losing an additional eight square miles.
Mueller reported last month that seven square miles of the 170-square-mile and 130-feet-thick Ward Hunt shelf had broken off.
This comes on the heels of unusual cracks in a northern Greenland glacier, rapid melting of a southern Greenland glacier, and a near record loss for Arctic sea ice this summer. And earlier this year a 160-square mile chunk of an Antarctic ice shelf disintegrated.
"Reduced sea ice conditions and unusually high air temperatures have facilitated the ice shelf losses this summer," said Luke Copland, director of the Laboratory for Cryospheric Research at the University of Ottawa. "And extensive new cracks across remaining parts of the largest remaining ice shelf, the Ward Hunt, mean that it will continue to disintegrate in the coming years."
Formed by accumulating snow and freezing meltwater, ice shelves are large platforms of thick, ancient sea ice that float on the ocean's surface but are connected to land.
Ellesmere Island was once entirely ringed by a single enormous ice shelf that broke up in the early 1900s. All that is left today are the four much smaller shelves that together cover little more than 299 square miles.
Martin Jeffries of the U.S. National Science Foundation and University of Alaska Fairbanks said in a statement Tuesday that the summer's ice shelf loss is equivalent to over three times the area of Manhattan, totaling 82 square miles _ losses that have reduced Arctic Ocean ice cover to its second-biggest retreat since satellite measurements began 30 years ago.
"These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present," said Mueller.
During the last century, when ice shelves would break off, thick sea ice would eventually reform in their place.
"But today, warmer temperatures and a changing climate means there's no hope for regrowth. A scary scenario," said Mueller.
The loss of these ice shelves means that rare ecosystems that depend on them are on the brink of extinction, said Warwick Vincent, director of Laval University's Centre for Northern Studies and a researcher in the program ArcticNet.
"The Markham Ice Shelf had half the biomass for the entire Canadian Arctic Ice Shelf ecosystem as a habitat for cold, tolerant microbial life; algae that sit on top of the ice shelf and photosynthesis like plants would. Now that it's disappeared, we're looking at ecosystems on the verge of extinction,' said Mueller.
Along with decimating ecosystems, drifting ice shelves and warmer temperatures that will cause further melting ice pose a hazard to populated shipping routes in the Arctic region _ a phenomenon that Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to welcome.
Harper announced last week that he plans to expand exploration of the region's known oil and mineral deposits, a possibility that has become more evident as a result of melting sea ice. It is the burning of oil and other fossil fuels that scientists say is the chief cause of manmade warming and melting ice.
Harper also said Canada would toughen reporting requirements for ships entering its waters in the Far North, where some of those territorial claims are disputed by the United States and other countries.
Monday, September 29, 2008
3:46 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Fernando Alonso remains non-committal on his future with Renault despite posting his first victory in a year at the Singapore Grand Prix.
The two-time world champion Spaniard has yet to finalise his plans for 2009, but he is known to be biding his time before deciding what to do.
With no seats remaining available at Ferrari or McLaren Mercedes, he has been linked with a possible move to BMW Sauber, but may yet stay with Renault after breaking his win drought.
Team boss Flavio Briatore insisted the future was still unclear.
"Well, it's not a victory that changes a situation," the Italian said.
"We have a good relationship with Fernando, we are talking together, and we will be happy with his decision.
"That is all that I can say for the moment."
Alonso also declined to shed any light on what he might do, denying that he was now beginning to prepare for Renault's 2009 campaign.
"No, I didn't say that," he said when asked.
"It's not changing the decision for next year. As I've always said, Renault will be my first priority because I feel I'm at home in this team."
Prior to his win here after starting from 15th on the grid, the 27-year-old had struggled to make an impact this year, with a fourth place his previous best result.
His unexpected victory in an incident-packed night race came as a relief.
"I think I need a couple of days to realise we won a race this year," he said.
"It seems impossible all through the season to be close to the top guys and here suddenly we have been competitive from Friday. It's fantastic."
3:45 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Fernando Alonso remains non-committal on his future with Renault despite posting his first victory in a year at the Singapore Grand Prix.
The two-time world champion Spaniard has yet to finalise his plans for 2009, but he is known to be biding his time before deciding what to do.
With no seats remaining available at Ferrari or McLaren Mercedes, he has been linked with a possible move to BMW Sauber, but may yet stay with Renault after breaking his win drought.
Team boss Flavio Briatore insisted the future was still unclear.
"Well, it's not a victory that changes a situation," the Italian said.
"We have a good relationship with Fernando, we are talking together, and we will be happy with his decision.
"That is all that I can say for the moment."
Alonso also declined to shed any light on what he might do, denying that he was now beginning to prepare for Renault's 2009 campaign.
"No, I didn't say that," he said when asked.
"It's not changing the decision for next year. As I've always said, Renault will be my first priority because I feel I'm at home in this team."
Prior to his win here after starting from 15th on the grid, the 27-year-old had struggled to make an impact this year, with a fourth place his previous best result.
His unexpected victory in an incident-packed night race came as a relief.
"I think I need a couple of days to realise we won a race this year," he said.
"It seems impossible all through the season to be close to the top guys and here suddenly we have been competitive from Friday. It's fantastic."
3:41 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Kimi Raikkonen has conceded that any hope he had of defending his world title has evaporated after his disastrous Singapore Grand Prix.
The Ferrari star finished outside the points for his fourth consecutive race after ramming his car into the barriers with just four laps left when he was in fifth.
It leaves the Finn 27 points adrift of leader Lewis Hamilton with three races to go.
"It was a pretty small chance anyhow," he said of his title chances.
"I'm not sad for my fifth place but I'm sorry for the team to lose those points. But for sure we'll try to do better next race."
Raikkonen has not won a race since the Spanish Grand Prix in April and the last time he scored any championship points was at Germany in July, when he finished sixth.
But his position at Ferrari is guaranteed after signing a new contract and he vowed to do all he could to help the team win the constructors' title.
"I am not used to giving up and I will do my very best to try and help the team reach its targets," he told reporters.
With teammate Felipe Massa also finishing outside the points, there is every chance that Raikkonen will be under orders to help the Brazilian in his bid to win the drivers' title.
Massa is seven points behind McLaren's Hamilton.
"I know what the team wants -- they want to win the world championship," he said.
"We will see what happens. I'm trying to win races too and we will see what happens. I'm out of the championship anyhow."
He added that he crashed as he tried to pass Timo Glock to lift himself into fourth position.
"I was trying to attack Glock in case he might make a mistake but I went slightly wide at the chicane, jumping over the kerb, and when the car landed I lost control and ended up in the barriers," he said.
"Clearly, morale is not high today."
2:44 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 28 - Nico Rosberg was a relieved man on Sunday after the Williams driver risked all to secure a career-best second place at Formula One's first night race in Singapore.
The German had made a poor start and dropped two places to 10th, stuck in a caravan of cars behind Toyota's Jarno Trulli and in danger of losing contact with the first eight drivers around the tight Marina Bay Street Circuit.
"My start wasn't great on the dirty side of the track," the 23-year-old told reporters. "I was stuck behind Jarno and my team told me if I didn't get past him my race was over.
"So I just had to get by him and I risked it.
"I went for it a couple of times and was pretty close. In the end, I locked up all four wheels and got past despite flat-spotting my tyres afterwards.
"I then had to do one qualifying lap after another to get clear again."
Rosberg then inherited the lead after the safety car was deployed following Nelson Piquet's crash on the 15th lap.
With leader and pole sitter Felipe Massa making a disastrous pitstop when all the leading contenders came in for a change of tyres, Rosberg was well-placed despite collecting a stop-go penalty for refuelling when the pitlane was closed.
The German had built a large enough advantage at the head of the pack to re-emerge in second place behind eventual winner Fernando Alonso.
"The safety car came out just when I was coming in and I couldn't believe it," added Rosberg, who's previous best finish was third place in this season's opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
"But it turned out well in the end and its very nice to be up here celebrating my second podium. It gives the team a big boost... not only now but for the off season.
"I think we deserve the success too. We have had a lot of bad luck, so it's nice that the luck was on our side for a change.
"Fernando was just a little bit too quick for me to go for the win, so I just made sure I could stay ahead of (third place finisher) Lewis until the end of the race."
2:42 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Ferrari world title contender Felipe Massa had a disastrous Singapore Grand Prix Sunday but refused to blame the mechanic who ruined his race.
The Brazilian, ahead of rival Lewis Hamilton at the time after 15 laps, was given the green light to leave the pits but the fuel hose was still attached as he accelerated away, spraying petrol and knocking over one of the pit crew.
Massa ended up sitting in his Ferrari at the end of the pit lane as the crew frantically ran after him and managed to pull the hose free.
But he was given a drive-through penalty for almost hitting another car as he drove away and rejoined in 18th place, ending any hope he had of making the points.
Despite the disaster, he was philosophical.
"We could have finished first and second and it could have been different," he said as he slipped seven points behind Hamilton in the drivers' standings with three races left after the Briton finished third.
"It is hard to deal with losing in this fashion a race that was within our grasp with a car that was just the way I wanted it.
"But things can change in a moment and that's what happened today.
"We are all human beings, everyone makes mistakes. I am not the sort of person who goes to a guy and fights with him.
"So I went to the guy and gave him even more motivation because we need him and we need everybody together for the last three races of the season."
It was a race to forget for Ferrari with defending world champion Kimi Raikkonen failing to finish after ramming his car into the barriers with just four laps left when he was fifth.
"A black day, there's little else to day. We are very disappointed but that doesn't mean we are downtrodden," Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali told reporters, brushing aside suggestions the mechanic would be reprimanded.
"You try to be quick, try to find the right slot for the car to be released," he said.
"It is a difficult moment. We have to have a lot of respect for these guys, who are not top drivers but are part of us."
David Coulthard in a Red Bull had a similar pit-stop blunder with his fuel hose also left on and a mechanic hurt, although his crew resolved the issue quickly.
2:39 PM
SINGAPORE, Sept 29 - Fernando Alonso was crowned Formula One's prince of darkness on Sunday, after streaking to the chequered flag at the sport's first night-time grand prix in Singapore.
The Spaniard's triumph at Formula One's 800th race was heralded by customary champagne-fuelled celebrations, the podium jubilation adhering to time-honoured motor racing etiquette.
But while Renault's twice former world champion will be forever noted as the Singapore GP's first winner, the F1 honour roll will not so easily record the biggest winner of the weekend -- the South-East Asian city-state whose staging of a spectacular and innovative race has left the motor racing world agog with admiration.
A jewel in the Formula One crown is how the sport's supremo Bernie Ecclestone described the Singapore race, adding that floodlit events were the future for the sport.
It helped that Sunday night's race was an action-packed roller-coaster of thrills, drama and daredevil driving.
"In this part of the world, for sure, night races will take off," the billionaire who owns the sport's commercial rights said on Sunday. Ecclestone plans to turn the Japanese GP into a night race next.
SINGAPOREAN EXTRAVAGANZA
McLaren boss Ron Dennis raved about the Singaporean extravaganza.
"It is not just a new experience," he said, "It is a real big step in the history of grand prix racing because it has been done so well.
"Everything has been proven now and we can take this model and apply it to anywhere in the world - either to bring to Europe the race at a time when people watch it, or even within Europe to make it more spectacular."
Williams team boss, the eponymous Frank Williams, echoed Ecclestone's thoughts.
"It has a good chance of challenging Monaco for being the jewel in the crown of Formula One," he told Autosport magazine's website.
From the floodlit 5.067 kilometre track, strewn across Singapore's downtown like a luminous ribbon, to the state-of-the-art facilities and clockwork organisation, the entire staging of the grand prix has been an exercise in how to get it right.
Organisers had faced a headache of eye-watering proportions in their ambitions to step into the unknown and host the extravaganza under the stars.
For the lighting alone, 1,600 lantern-like projectors were rigged up, requiring more than 100,000 metres of cabling and 240 steel pylons to illuminate the track.
FESTIVAL ATMOSPHERE
The result was some of the most spectacular images of any sporting event. Pictures of gleaming Ferraris speeding through a hi-tech cityscape vied with images of cars streaking past the world's largest observation wheel, the Singapore Flyer -- pictures which filled the media and fuelled the appetite for motor sport.
More than 300,000 people poured through the gates over three days, a sell-out, and created a festival atmosphere.
Organisers set up "hawker stalls" offering visitors a taste of authentic Singaporean food while magicians, singers and jugglers entertained the masses.
"It costs a lot of money, the lights, the circuit and the organisation. But it is a great investment for the city. And, of course, it is fantastic for F1. It is, in the best sense of the word, a highlight," Mercedes motorsport vice-president Norbert Haug said.
Even the drivers, a breed of detail-obsessed, nit-picking perfectionists, gave it the thumbs up.
"The track and the facilities here have been phenomenal," championship leader Lewis Hamilton said after finishing third.
"The organisers should be very proud of the job they have done."
Sunday, September 28, 2008
11:34 AM
SINGAPORE: Singapore is on track to complete its first permanent race circuit in Changi by 2011.
Teo Ser Luck, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development, Youth and Sports, said this on Thursday.
While Mr Teo did not reveal the number of interested tenderers, he said the government is in talks with several parties and is exploring the different possibilities of developing the facility which will be fully funded by the private sector.
He said: "We are committed to wanting to develop a race track. We are open to different ideas which are coming forward because for the government side, we want to make it successful, and it must be a win—win partnership between the consortium that ultimately wins it and operates it, and the government as well."
"We are also assessing what needs to be done in that race track. It is a seafront race track, so we must maximise that piece of land there, not just as a race track but possibly an area where tourists will come, locals will go there and everybody would look at it as more than just for car races, but it is a family outing area as well," added Mr Teo.
The race track, which will be built on a 20—hectare plot, is likely to stretch between 2.8km and 3.5km, short compared to the Singapore Grand Prix circuit of 5.067km.
"That piece of land there is quite vast, but there are other needs for that piece of land, so I would say there is no confirmation or final (decision) on size and all that, we will talk to the different parties and decide later," said Mr Teo.
The Changi race track will be capable of hosting major motorsports events, except for F1 races, which need Grade 1 circuits, and include facilities such as a racing and driver training school, and a pit building and grandstand.
Hafiz Koh, a Singapore pro race driver, said: "It’s definitely a good training ground for drivers to move forward if you have a track and you could start earlier but for GP drivers like myself, who drive GP cars, we still need to travel a lot and test different tracks. The only way you can learn is to drive different cars on different tracks."
11:32 AM
SINGAPORE, Sept 27 - Championship leader Lewis Hamilton warned on Saturday that his hopes of winning the Singapore Grand Prix could all come down to a first corner clash with title rival Felipe Massa.
The McLaren driver qualified second for Sunday's race with Ferrari's Massa capturing his fifth pole position of the season with what he called a "perfect lap" under the city-state's floodlights.
Hamilton was a massive 0.664 seconds slower than the Brazilian around the 5.067km circuit and said the city-state's tight, bumpy streets would make it virtually impossible to win Formula One's first night race if Massa made no mistakes.
The Ferrari driver won the last street circuit race, in Valencia, after the pair had again qualified first and second on the grid.
"Depends who gets to the first corner first," Hamilton told reporters on Saturday.
"You will not be able to overtake out there. It is going to be tough. just have to play it by ear."
The 23-year-old said his car had the potential to go quicker in Sunday's race, which starts at 2000 local , while Massa had already shown his hand. The Briton leads Massa by a single point in the standings with four races remaining.
"My lap was by no means perfect. Felipe said he did a perfect lap," he added.
"We are not worried, we are in a very strong position tomorrow. I am happy where I am, we're looking quite good with our strategy."
11:32 AM
SINGAPORE (AFP) - - The Singapore street circuit is too bumpy and a cause for concern, some of Formula One's top drivers say, but they are thriving on the challenge.
The island is hosting its inaugural Grand Prix and has been widely praised for putting on a spectacular show, but the city streets are proving problematic.
World championship leader Lewis Hamilton said it was twice as hard to negotiate as the more famous Monaco street circuit.
"Through certain corners there was lots of bottoming, and when you hit a bump it would throw the car around quite a bit - but it's an amazing venue," said the McLaren driver.
"It's a very physical circuit - more than I expected, actually," he added.
"You need to put a lot of work into the car to get a good lap. I'd say it requires double the energy of Monaco over a single lap. One lap around here is like two laps of Monaco."
His teammate Heikki Kovalainen is also wary about the bumps
"The track was quite bumpy. Perhaps we should also look at the pit entry - it could be quite difficult if a driver decides to pull into the pits at the last minute," he said.
"However, everything else about the track is fine. This place has got some difficult corners but I quite like all the sectors."
Ferrari's title challenger Felipe Massa agreed with Kovalainen about the pit entry.
"The entry and exit to the pit lane could turn out to be a bit critical in the race," he said.
"In general, the track surface has a lot of grip but in some points there are some bumps that are a bit of a pain.
"It is a street circuit which means you have to concentrate all the time as there is no margin for error."
Williams driver Kazuki Nakajima said the track was hugely challenging.
"It's a very tough track, hot and bumpy, probably the bumpiest track surface we encounter all season," he said.
"As a consequence, I think it will be a pretty demanding race."
His thoughts were echoed by Sebastian Vettel, who won his first ever Grand Prix in Italy earlier this month.
"Visibility is not a problem. Some places are darker than others and it's good fun," said the Toro Rosso driver of hurtling round the circuit under lights.
"The track is very difficult, but unfortunately the surface is very bumpy which does not make life easy. It is tough and demanding for both car and driver."
Thursday, September 4, 2008
10:41 PM
ACCRA (AFP) - - Time is running out in the fight against global warming, the UN's top climate change official warned as a new round of UN talks got started here Thursday.
"There is little time left to get a solid negotiating text on the table. Clearly the clock is ticking," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"People in a burning house cannot afford to lose time in an argument," he said, citing an Ashanti proverb.
The Accra gathering must strive to "reach agreement on the rules and tools" that developed countries will use to cut greenhouse gas emissions, he told more than 1,600 delegates from 160 nations.
Ghana's President John Kufuor echoed the sense of urgency in his opening remarks, noting that his country was already suffering the consequences of global warming.
Rainfall in Ghana has decreased by 20 percent in three decades, and 1,000 square kilometres (400 square miles) of fertile agricultural land in the upper Volta Delta will be lost to rising sea levels and flooding if temperatures rise at their current pace, he said.
The expert-level meeting, which runs through August 27, is the third UN climate change conference since nations committed to adopting a binding climate accord no later than December 2009.
It is the last meeting ahead of a ministerial summit in Poznan, Poland in December where rich countries will be under intense pressure to nail down near-term commitments for reducing greenhouse gases.
The Group of Eight industrialised powers pledged to halve emissions by 2050, but critics say intermediate goals are needed.
"The real political commitment is short- and medium-term," Connie Hedegaard, the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, told delegates.
"We have to speed up the pace. The negotiations here in Accra must deliver concrete results" about what technologies will be used to cut emissions, she said.
Africa is arguably the continent most vulnerable to the potential ravages of climate change, which range from extreme drought to violent storms to rising sea levels.
De Boer challenged delegates to be "ambitious," and said if they failed Africa would continue, in terms of climate change, to be the "forgotten continent".
He insisted that rich countries step up financial assistance to help Africa with global warming.
African produces the fewest emissions, he pointed out, but will likely well pay the heaviest price.
De Boer and Kufuor underlined the threat of deforestation, which is destroying one of nature's most powerful natural buffers against global warming.
The world's forests -- which are disappearing at a rate of about 30 million hectares (74 million acres) per year -- soak up more than 20 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
"Governments need to focus on reducing emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation," and on how to reward countries that protect forests, said de Boer.
The problem is particularly acute in Amazonia, central Africa and Indonesia, experts note.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an environmental group, called on the Accra meeting to adopt the Olympic motto of "faster, higher, stronger."
"Progress on substance ... must be swifter, the level of ambition by both developed and developing countries higher, and the measures to reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions stronger," said Kim Carstensen, director of the WWF's Global Climate Change Initiative.
10:40 PM
TORONTO - A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday.
Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario, told The Associated Press that the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean.
"The Markham Ice Shelf was a big surprise because it suddenly disappeared. We went under cloud for a bit during our research and when the weather cleared up, all of a sudden there was no more ice shelf. It was a shocking event that underscores the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic," said Mueller.
Mueller also said that two large sections of ice detached from the Serson Ice Shelf, shrinking that ice feature by 47 square miles _ or 60 percent _ and that the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has also continued to break up, losing an additional eight square miles.
Mueller reported last month that seven square miles of the 170-square-mile and 130-feet-thick Ward Hunt shelf had broken off.
This comes on the heels of unusual cracks in a northern Greenland glacier, rapid melting of a southern Greenland glacier, and a near record loss for Arctic sea ice this summer. And earlier this year a 160-square mile chunk of an Antarctic ice shelf disintegrated.
"Reduced sea ice conditions and unusually high air temperatures have facilitated the ice shelf losses this summer," said Luke Copland, director of the Laboratory for Cryospheric Research at the University of Ottawa. "And extensive new cracks across remaining parts of the largest remaining ice shelf, the Ward Hunt, mean that it will continue to disintegrate in the coming years."
Formed by accumulating snow and freezing meltwater, ice shelves are large platforms of thick, ancient sea ice that float on the ocean's surface but are connected to land.
Ellesmere Island was once entirely ringed by a single enormous ice shelf that broke up in the early 1900s. All that is left today are the four much smaller shelves that together cover little more than 299 square miles.
Martin Jeffries of the U.S. National Science Foundation and University of Alaska Fairbanks said in a statement Tuesday that the summer's ice shelf loss is equivalent to over three times the area of Manhattan, totaling 82 square miles _ losses that have reduced Arctic Ocean ice cover to its second-biggest retreat since satellite measurements began 30 years ago.
"These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present," said Mueller.
During the last century, when ice shelves would break off, thick sea ice would eventually reform in their place.
"But today, warmer temperatures and a changing climate means there's no hope for regrowth. A scary scenario," said Mueller.
The loss of these ice shelves means that rare ecosystems that depend on them are on the brink of extinction, said Warwick Vincent, director of Laval University's Centre for Northern Studies and a researcher in the program ArcticNet.
"The Markham Ice Shelf had half the biomass for the entire Canadian Arctic Ice Shelf ecosystem as a habitat for cold, tolerant microbial life; algae that sit on top of the ice shelf and photosynthesis like plants would. Now that it's disappeared, we're looking at ecosystems on the verge of extinction,' said Mueller.
Along with decimating ecosystems, drifting ice shelves and warmer temperatures that will cause further melting ice pose a hazard to populated shipping routes in the Arctic region _ a phenomenon that Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to welcome.
Harper announced last week that he plans to expand exploration of the region's known oil and mineral deposits, a possibility that has become more evident as a result of melting sea ice. It is the burning of oil and other fossil fuels that scientists say is the chief cause of manmade warming and melting ice.
Harper also said Canada would toughen reporting requirements for ships entering its waters in the Far North, where some of those territorial claims are disputed by the United States and other countries.
