Charles Leclerc has admitted that Ferrari are “nowhere near Mercedes” after finishing some eight-tenths behind the pole-sitting Silver Arrow of George Russell during Australian Grand Prix Qualifying.
Lando Norris went into 2026 as the reigning World Champion, but his early expectations for the season were lowered as he qualified on the third row for the Australian Grand Prix, leading him to blame a substantial list of issues he encountered.
MIAMI (ANP) - Honkballer Ceddanne Rafaela wil zaterdagavond een reactie van de Nederlandse honkballers zien in het duel met Nicaragua op de World Baseball Classic (WBC). "We zijn één inning uit elkaar gevallen", zei hij vlak na de verloren openingswedstrijd van Oranje op het officieuze WK tegen Venezuela (6-2) in het stadion van Miami Marlins. "Dat mag ons niet gebeuren, maar nu moeten we onszelf revancheren."
De ploeg van bondscoach Andruw Jones maakte een goede indruk in de eerste vier innings, maar verspeelde in de vijfde inning vier punten nadat pitcher Jaydenn Estanista op de heuvel was verschenen. De ploeggenoot van Rafaela had zijn zenuwen duidelijk niet onder controle voor 20.000 toeschouwers in het stadion van de Miami Marlins. Het ging van kwaad tot erger, totdat hij naar de kant werd gehaald. Nederland kon de opgelopen schade niet herstellen en verloor met vier punten.
De 25-jarige Rafaela, geboren in Willemstad, draagt een opvallende oranje handschoen op de zesde editie van het officieuze WK. De print refereert aan het shirt dat de spelers van het Nederlands elftal in 1988 droegen toen ze het EK wonnen. Het was een cadeau van de kledingsponsor van de speler van de Boston Red Sox, die vorig seizoen de Gold Glove Award won voor zijn sterke defensieve spel.
Succes is ver weg
Die oranje handschoen werd duidelijk zichtbaar toen Rafaela na een indrukwekkende snoekduik een bal ving. "Die handschoen inspireert me", zegt de center fielder die 12 jaar na de gewonnen EK-finale van het Nederlands elftal werd geboren. "Maar ik ken Ruud Gullit en Marco van Basten wel", benadrukt hij. "Ik ben een liefhebber van voetbal en weet dat dit de grootste prijs is die een Nederlandse ploeg in teamverband heeft gewonnen."
Succes in de WBC is ver weg na de nederlaag tegen Venezuela. Alleen de twee beste ploegen van de poule gaan door naar de kwartfinale. Oranje speelt nog tegen Nicaragua, Israël en de Dominicaanse Republiek, die met zoveel goede spelers bijna verplicht zijn de groep te winnen. "Maar wij zijn ook goed als we doen wat we moeten doen", weet Rafaela. "Dan moeten we maar tegen hen stunten."
Rafaela heeft de iconische omhaal van Van Basten in de EK-finale tegen de toenmalige Sovjet-Unie weleens teruggekeken. Hij wist niet dat Oranje het EK in 1988 begon met een nederlaag tegen de Sovjet-Unie door een doelpunt van Vasili Rats (1-0). "Meen je dat nou?", lacht hij. "Zie je nu wel dat er niets verloren is? Maar we moeten wel beter spelen nu, dat kunnen we ook."
In documentary The Pink Pill, the fight to provide access to the so-called ‘female Viagra’ exposes an industry that still discounts the needs of women
Barbara Gattuso had been happily married for decades when she signed up, in the late 2000s, for a clinical trial involving a potentially revolutionary new drug. She and her husband had once had a fulfilling sex life, both pre- and post-children. But at some point during her perimenopausal years, her desire disappeared. It wasn’t stress, fatigue or relationship issues, though her lack of libido certainly contributed to those. It was more like a mysterious evaporation – like “somebody pulled the plug”, as she recalls in a new documentary on flibanserin, the experimental drug that proffered potential relief.
Originally developed as an anti-depressant by the German company Boehringer Ingelheim, flibanserin had instead shown promise as a treatment for low female libido, working on neurotransmitters in the so-called “sex center” of the brain. In a video from that trial filmed by Dr Irwin Goldstein, the “godfather of sexual medicine” and a key consultant on Viagra – that revolutionary blue pill for men with erectile dysfunction – Gattuso appears nearly giddy. She was chasing her husband around again, she said. She felt “phenomenal”, like a “new woman on this drug”. She was plugged in.
Continue reading...The presenter and writer on trying to become an air steward aged seven, daytime baths, and an on-air howler
Born in London, Fearne Cotton, 44, began presenting The Disney Club at 15. She went on to become a Radio 1 DJ, hosting her own show from 2009 to 2015; she currently presents Radio 2’s Sounds of the 90s. In 2017, she started the Happy Place community and now has an award-winning podcast, an annual festival and a publishing imprint. The author of bestselling personal development books, her latest, Likeable, is out next week. She lives in London and has two children with her former husband, Jesse Wood.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Impatience. I’m not very good at waiting around or dealing with things that aren’t moving at a pace that I want them to.
Regime change, nuclear threat – or something else? US officials seem unable to land on one coherent reason for war
When the United States launched Operation Epic Fury last Saturday, the Trump administration had a major communications question to figure out: how to explain to the American public, Congress, and the world why it had just started a war with Iran.
During war time, talking points and propaganda reflexively fly in every direction, but the Trump administration still hasn’t been able to land on one coherent answer.
Continue reading...Billy Bragg, Sarah Lucas and Kojo Koram among those encouraging people to share cultural artefacts
For some people it’s a Morris Minor, for others, a beach windbreak, chicken tikka masala or Magna Carta.
A new campaign is aiming to collect 50 objects that sum up Englishness in an effort to move the conversation away from reductive arguments over whether to hang a St George’s flag or not.
Continue reading...Extortionate costs, queueing in the cold and potentially life-altering injuries? No thanks. And don’t get me started on the EDM après-ski hell
There comes a time in every middle-class or upwardly mobile person’s life when they will hear the following six words: “Would you like to come skiing?” My answer: absolutely not.
Skiing, I have come to believe, is the emperor’s new clothes of leisure pursuits: a collectively sustained fantasy. People insist it’s magical in the same way they insist that cold-water swimming is “transformative” or small plates are “better for sharing”. At some point we forgot to ask whether any of this is actually true.
Emma Loffhagen is a freelance commissioning editor and writer covering culture and lifestyle
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