Hamilton back behind the wheel next week
Six-times Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton will be back on track at Silverstone next week for the first time since February as Mercedes gear up for the start of the delayed Formula One season.
Mercedes said on Twitter that Hamilton will be in his title-winning 2018 Mercedes W09 car on Wednesday, with teammate Valtteri Bottas driving on Tuesday, to practise protocols for the July 5 Austrian opener.
Formula One has published an initial calendar with eight races in 10 weeks, taking place without spectators and in controlled conditions because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Silverstone, which hosts Hamilton’s home British Grand Prix, is due to host two back-toback races in August when it will also celebrate the 70th anniversary of the first world championship grand prix there.
Drivers have not raced since December, with the planned season-opener in Australia cancelled in March, and while they have been busy training during the lockdown some are concerned about preparedness.
Mercedes returned to work only this week after a long factory shutdown as part of cost-saving measures.
“There is going to be so much rust, a combination of emotion, excitement, eagerness,” Australian Daniel Ricciardo said in May. “Everyone is going to be ready to go. You are going to get some guys who perform on that level of adrenaline and others who might not,” added the Renault driver.
“So you’re going to get some bold overtakes, some miscalculated ones. You’re going to see a bit of everything.”
Crisis-ridden Cricket SA is set to continue operating with an acting accounting officer‚ at least for the immediate future‚ after the governing body admitted to failing to meet its own deadline for finalising proceedings on suspended CEO Thabang Moroe.
On Friday it will be six months since Moroe was put on “precautionary suspension with pay” on what the Cricket SA board said were “allegations of misconduct”.
The Chris Nenzani-led Cricket SA board said the decision to place Moroe on precautionary suspension followed reports from the social and ethics and the audit and risk committees‚ flagging “possible failure of controls in the organisation”.
Cricket SA president and board chair Nenzani has been steadfast in telling the cricket fraternity and the public that Moroe’s suspension “will be finalised in six months”.
But it emerged this week that Cricket SA is nowhere near settling Moroe’s suspension‚ which has reportedly cost the organisation more than R2m.
The Cricket SA board admitted that it is still far from finalising the matter‚ citing the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions as a reason.
“The advent of Covid-19 has not only had a global impact on the world health status‚ but it has also meant that it could not be business as usual on the operations front‚” the Cricket SA board said on Thursday.
Despite this, the board managed to make some executive and nonexecutive management appointments during the coronavirus lockdown.
Graeme Smith’s acting role as director of cricket was made permanent. Limpopo Cricket boss John Mogodu was elected as a nonindependent director on the Cricket SA board despite the lockdown.
Cricket SA also concluded and announced two new commercial partnerships when leading national telecommunications providers BitCo Telecoms and Kemach Equipment came on board despite the Covid-19 restrictions.
“As you will recall‚ SA went on national lockdown on March 27 2020, an outcome that has led to delays in the conclusion and resolution of a number of business process areas and, for our part‚ this includes the outcomes of both the internal disciplinary and the forensic processes‚ which are both independent processes‚” the board said.
“Consequently‚ these processes are still ongoing and Cricket SA is unable to share any new updates until there is an outcome on these two cases and a report is presented.”
Further evidence that Covid19 has not completely paralysed the Cricket SA board from attending to pressing matters came last week when it extended acting CEO Jacques Faul’s interim role. Faul was roped in a few days after Moroe’s suspension.