Red Bull's Webber on Pole for German GP

by Gordon Howard

A determined Mark Webber of Red Bull secured pole position for Sunday's German Grand Prix with a blistering performance in the final minutes of Saturday's tense and competitive qualifying session.

On a cold afternoon in the Eifel mountains, the 34-year-old Australian was dominant as unexpected nearest rival Lewis Hamilton grabbed second place for McLaren.

The Briton's performance pushed defending champion Sebastian Vettel in the second Red Bull off the front row of the grid.

It was the first time this year that 24-year-old German, the runaway leader in this year's title race, had failed to qualify on the front row and, overall, the first time in 15 Grands Prix since last season's Italian Grand Prix.

For Webber, it confirmed his liking for the Nurburgring circuit, where he claimed his first career win two years ago.

It was his second pole in successive races, his third this year and the ninth of his career.

Webber clocked a fastest lap of one minute and 30.079 seconds to take the prime starting position ahead of Hamilton, who produced a brilliant effort to take second just 0.05 seconds behind him in his McLaren.

Webber said: "My form has been getting better and this track's not been too bad for me in the past.

"The boys did a great job on the car - there were some late nights in the lead up to here but we got it together in the end. After my lap I thought that if someone gets me they deserve it because I was at my limit and it was a great lap."

"That was a wicked lap," said Hamilton after splitting the Red Bulls.

"It had everything."

He added: "I really must thank and congratulate my team. The upgrades this weekend - updates and improvements to engine modes - have been arriving all the time and they have helped massively.

"I underestimated how good the car would be when we went to light fuel load. It was one of the happiest and most comforting laps I have ever had, I felt incredible. We are not far from them (Red Bull) so I'm very happy."

Vettel, whose form has slipped from his own very high standards in the lat two months, was only able to take third place ahead of two-times champion Fernando Alonso and his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa who was fifth after a dramatic finale to qualifying.

A defensive Vettel insisted: "It is not a disappointment. I would like to be further up, but it was a tough session. The balance was not right yesterday and although we made a bit of a recovery today, we should have been quicker.."

Vettel has never won a race on home soil and is desperate to end that record on his 'homecoming' as champion, but he has looked slightly ill at ease as his main rivals have begun to produce faster and more competitive performances.

German Nico Rosberg took sixth for Mercedes ahead of Briton Jenson Button in the second McLaren.

Then came another German, Adrian Sutil of Force India, Russian Vitaly Petrov of Renault and seven-times champion local hero Michael Schumacher, 42, in the second Mercedes. 'Schumi' was 2.4 seconds off pole.

Jenson Button aborted his final qualifying lap and said afterwards he was mystified at being comprehensively outpaced by Hamilton.

"We lost the balance that we had in the morning and I don't know the answer," he said.

The German Grand Prix is the 10th round in the 19-race calendar.

Vettel leads the drivers' championship with 204 points ahead of Webber on 124, Alonso on 112 and the two McLaren drivers Button and Hamilton on 109.

In the constructors' championship, Red Bull lead with 328 ahead of McLaren on 218 and Ferrari on 164. AFP

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com
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Lorenzo seizes US GP pole

Spanish Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo shrugged off a spectacular practice crash to capture pole position yesterday for today’s MotoGP US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca Raceway.

Lorenzo, who arrived Stateside chasing Australian Casey Stoner for the series points lead, clocked the fastest qualifying time of 1min 21.202sec, edging Stoner who was second-quickest in 1:21.274.

Stoner’s Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa of Spain was third-quickest, with Lorenzo’s factory Yamaha teammate Ben Spies fourth.

Lorenzo’s second pole position of the season came after he was sent flying in the morning’s third and final free practice.

After a few moments on the ground, he was able to stand and limp off the track. He was checked by doctors at the race medical center and cleared for qualifying.

“It was a very ugly crash this morning. When I hit the ground I was full of pain and I was thinking that the race was over for me,” Lorenzo admitted. “Fortunately after some minutes the pain was going little by little. But to be in the first position is better than I expected.”

Lorenzo was still limping after qualifying, but said the discomfort was less when he was riding. “On the bike I don’t feel so much pain, so I could go fast from the beginning and then make a very good lap time with the soft tyres,” he said. “We are very proud of this result.” Lorenzo was fast early in qualifying, but it wasn’t until his 35th and final lap that he notched his pole-winning time to deny Stoner, who had boasted the fastest time from the three practice sessions.

Pedrosa, winner of the German Grand Prix last weekend, finished .183sec off the qualifying pace. Spies was .376sec behind Lorenzo.

Despite booking a front-row spot on the starting grid, Stoner wasn’t sounding optimistic. “For the whole session we were trying to find the right set up,” said the Aussie, who brings a 15-point lead over Lorenzo atop the standings into Sunday’s race. “All weekend we’ve been struggling a little and we’ve not found anything I’m comfortable with.

“I’ve closed the front many times and we’re still looking to find some balance on the bike to get it working on this track, where we expected it to work well.”

After Lorenzo had set a target with a fast lap 15 minutes into the session, America’s Spies delighted the home fans when he took provisional pole with 15 minutes remaining.

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Japan wins women’s World Cup for first time

AP - Japan became the first Asian nation to win the Women’s World Cup on Sunday, beating the United States in a penalty shootout after both sides were level at 2-2 after extra time.

The Japanese denied the U.S. team the chance to become the first nation to lift the cup three times.

The Americans missed their first three penalties and Japan went on to win the shootout 3-1 when Saki Kumagai slotted the final shot high past goalkeeper Hope Solo.

In a thrilling final, 32-year-old Japan captain Homare Sawa flicked a corner through a jumble of players and past Solo with three minutes of extra time left to level the score at 2-2 and set up the penalty shootout.

Japan had already scored late in regulation to force extra time.

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FIFA bans Asian football chief for life

AFP - Asian football supremo Mohamed bin Hammam was on Saturday banned from the game for life after being found guilty of corruption following a two-day hearing of FIFA's ethics committee.

The 62-year-old Qatari, the president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), had been accused of trying to buy votes in the FIFA presidential election with $40,000 cash gifts to Caribbean football officials.

"The official Mr Bin Hammam is hereby banned from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national or international level for life," announced ethics committee deputy chairman Petrus Damaseb.

Bin Hammam did not attend the hearing, which took place behind closed doors at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, but he told AFP in a telephone conversation on Saturday evening that he intended to appeal.

He specified that the first step would consist of making an appeal to FIFA, but he has previously declared that he is prepared to take his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and, if necessary, the civil courts.

Bin Hammam, the most high-profile FIFA figure to be convicted of corruption, also reacted to the decision on his blog by publishing a scanned copy of a personal letter sent to him by FIFA president Sepp Blatter in 2008.

In the letter, which Blatter addressed to "My dear brother," Bin Hammam had highlighted a phrase in which the 75-year-old Swiss had written: "Without you, dear Mohamed, none of this would ever have been possible".

Below the letter were the words: "This is only the battle, not the war..." -- suggesting that he holds Blatter at least partly responsible for his fate.

The head of Bin Hammam's legal team, Eugene Gulland, read out a statement from him after the verdict was announced.

"Mr Bin Hammam rejects the findings of the FIFA ethics committee hearing and maintains his innocence," said Gulland. "He will continue to fight his case through the legal routes that are open to him.

"He has gone on record and he maintains that the FIFA ethics committee was going to find against him whatever the validity of the case that he presented to them.

"The FIFA ethics committee has apparently based its decision on so-called 'circumstantial evidence', which our case has clearly demonstrated was bogus and founded on lies told by senior FIFA officials."

Whistle-blowers said Bin Hammam tried to bribe officials to vote for him by distributing cash-stuffed envelopes during a Caribbean Football Union (CFU) meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on May 10-11.

CFU officials Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester, also being investigated by the ethics committee over claims they helped hand out the money, were each banned from football-related activity for a year.

In addition, Damaseb revealed that the committee had rejected an accusation of racial discrimination made by CFU members against CONCACAF general secretary Chuck Blazer, who sparked the initial investigation into the bribery claims.

However, Blazer was warned over comments made at a CONCACAF meeting on May 30 that certain CFU members were "under investigation", which FIFA said was "not true".

Former FIFA vice-president and CONCACAF president Jack Warner was also charged over his alleged role in the affair, but his resignation from FIFA last month prompted the organisation to drop all the charges against him.

Damaseb admitted that Warner's absence from the proceedings was a matter of regret.

"Mr Jack Warner chose to resign and by that action he placed himself beyond the jurisdiction of this committee," said Damaseb.

"Everyone would have wanted him to appear and face the charges and explain his conduct, but he chose not to do that."

Damaseb also said that the evidence reviewed by the committee during the hearing had yielded grounds for investigations into the conduct of other parties, but he did not reveal who they were.

Bin Hammam's withdrawal from the presidential election gifted a fourth straight term in office to his former ally Blatter, who made cleaning up FIFA's tarnished image a post-election priority.

The Qatari, who had been instrumental in winning the hosting rights of the 2022 World Cup for his tiny Gulf state, had expected to be punished by the ethics committee.

"It seems likely that FIFA has already made its decision weeks ago," he wrote on his blog in the build-up to the meeting.

"So none of us should be completely surprised if a guilty verdict is returned."

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Lorenzo fit to continue after morning crash

MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo has been declared fit to continue in this weekend's US Grand Prix, after medical checks ruled out serious injury in this morning's huge final practice highside.

Lorenzo was in visible pain following the accident, which occurred moments after a practice start, at the very end of the 45-minute session at Laguna Seca.

The Factory Yamaha rider, now within 15 points of title leader Casey Stoner, was a close third in final practice - behind Stoner and the Australian's Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa.

“That isn't how I planned to finish the free practice," said Lorenzo. "I am not sure yet why I crashed, I need to take the video from Dorna and study it as I was not going that fast.

"Anyway I am very sore especially in my hip but happy to be uninjured and will still be there to give 100% in qualifying this afternoon.

"Apart from the crash the morning session was good, the bike still needs more going into the corners but we are getting there.”

Qualifying takes place this afternoon.

Source: http://www.crash.net
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Rossi matches best Ducati qualifying, Hayden crash

Outside the top ten on the grid for the past four rounds, Valentino Rossi equalled his best Ducati qualifying with seventh for Sunday's US MotoGP at Laguna Seca.

Rossi has chosen to stick with the new GP11.1 motorcycle this weekend, having considered switching back to the standard GP11 following a 16th to 9th 'salvage' ride last Sunday in Germany.

“This morning we made a change to the balance that helped me to find more grip with the soft tyre, as well as a feeling that was generally better. In the afternoon though, with the warmer temperature and the hard tyre, I didn't have the same performance and feeling," explained Rossi.

"During the session we were able to change the settings again and make a small step, and when we put on the soft, we did a time that was good enough for the third row. Seventh place actually equals my best qualifying spot of the season.

"That was our goal, to be able to start further forward than we have lately, but for the race we must improve our pace again with the hard tyres because it's a little too difficult now and the rear is sliding a lot. We're focused and we're working very hard so we'll see tomorrow if we can take another step forward.”

Rossi was 1.033sec behind pole sitter and former team-mate Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha).

Present team-mate Nicky Hayden had been ahead of Rossi in all three free practice sessions, but crashed in qualifying and will start his home race from ninth.

Hayden is using the GP11, after trying the GP11.1 for the first time in Friday practice.

“We went back to the standard bike today. I was a little faster on the new one yesterday, but even though it has more potential and I like the gearbox, I don't yet have a great feel for where its limit is," said Hayden. "For now, we prefer to go with what we know.

"This morning I was pretty strong and this afternoon I was consistently in the low-'22 range. I did two longer runs and came in to put in a new soft tyre and was ready to go for it. I felt good and was looking forward to going into qualifying mode.

"I wasn't pushing really hard on the out-lap, but you have to push this bike to load the front, and in Rainey Curve I skipped across the bumps and went down. It's a shame, because we had a chance to do our best qualifying of the year.

"I went out on the other bike, but the front tyre was 30 laps old. The team have worked like dogs switching back and forth between bikes. Now they'll have another long night, but I'll try to make up for it tomorrow.”

Satellite Ducati rider Hector Barbera will start between the factory Desmosedici riders in eighth.

"We are in line with the factory bikes and I think we can have a good battle tomorrow," said the Spaniard. "No doubt Hayden wants a good result here, Valentino too, so my objective is to stick with them as best I can."

Source: http://www.crash.net
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Mobile Plant Staff Vacancy at PT Jaya Readymix

As part of a joint venture between the Australian company Boral Ltd and PT. Pembangunan Jaya, PT. Jaya Readymix is a specialized concrete and quarrying company that has recently experienced an exceptional growth. With a reputation for the provision of quality products and services, the company is well placed to embark on its continued expansion. This role provides an excellent opportunity for the professional who fills the vacant position below:

Mobile Plant Staff
(Jakarta Raya)

Responsibilities:
Build data base of customers, material, and opportunities.
Explore new markets sectors for opportunities
Build cost models to assess opportunities
Make proposal for opportunities

Requirements:
Candidate must possess at least a Bachelor's Degree of Civil Engineering
Required language(s): English
At least 1-2 year(s) in business development area at construction company or consultant
Marketing and contract negotiation skills
Preferably Senior Staffs specializing in Engineering - Civil/Construction/Structural or equivalent.
Full-Time positions available.

All applications will be treated in strictly confidential. Please submit your application, along with your Curriculum Vitae, and a recent photograph within 14 days of this advertisement to:

Human Resources Manager
PT. Jaya Readymix
Graha Mobisel 5th Floor Jl. Buncit Raya No.139 Jakarta 12740
or
E-mail : jayamix_rec@cbn.net.id

Source: http://detikjobs.org
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