Hamilton looks to spoil Vettel’s party

Hamilton knows his title challenge this season is all but over as he heads into tomorrow’s race in Singapore trailing Vettel by 126 points.

It means for the Briton who came into the season with high hopes of reclaiming the crown he won in 2008, there is little left to fight for other than pride.

The hope now is he can at least make Vettel fight for back-to-back championships rather than cruising over the line in what has so far been a dominant campaign.

“Theoretically the title isn’t over, but I’m not really thinking much about the championship any more,” said Hamilton, who finished third quickest following yesterday’s practice, 0.7secs behind Vettel.

“Whilst there’s a small chance we’ll still keep pushing, we’ll never give up. We still take some energy, some positivity into these last few races, because we’re still competitive.

“For one thing it would be fantastic to knock him off pole. Just for the team, being the only team and being the only driver to do that would be pretty cool.

“In a race we know he can be beaten, and that we can still have some good wheel-to-wheel racing.

“I’m dying to have some wheel-to-wheel racing with him, and so I hope I have a few more opportunities to do that.”

Vettel finished with a lap of one minute 46.374secs with Fernando Alonso second quickest, 0.201 secs adrift of the 24-year-old German.

The duo finished comfortably clear of Hamilton, who struggled with his settings early on, with Felipe Massa just 0.005secs behind and Mark Webber fifth quickest, almost a second down on his team- mate.

As for the remainder of the field, they were a long way adrift in F1 terms, with Michael Schumacher sixth in his Mercedes, albeit a remarkable two seconds down.

Armitstead targets rainbow jersey joy

Cycling: Yorkshire’s Lizzie Armitstead believes victory in today’s road race World Championships in cycling would be the perfect preparation for her assault on the Olympi title next year.

The 23-year-old from Otley will be riding alongside Olympic champion Nicole Cooke in the women’s race in Copenhagen this morning, and of the prospect of wearing the world champion’s rainbow jersey at London 2012, she said: “It would mean a lot.

“It is the pinnacle of road cycling, so it would be huge for me to wear that and you’d be ultra-confident, on top of the world.”

Armitstead recently visited the Olympic road course in London and was impressed with the circuit – although not as pleased there was no women’s test event around it. “I had expected it to be something like the Commonwealth Games – really flat, that was the image I had,” she said. “But actually riding around the course and then seeing the men’s race, it’s a lot harder than what I’ve given it credit for.

“It (the lack of a women’s event) is one of those things. The event in itself cost something like £5m to put on, so they had to choose either male or female.

“They chose male and I think they missed an opportunity to have a women’s race, but I’m not going to let it bother me.”

Burley-in-Wharfedale’s Scott Thwaites, 21, finished in the bunch in yesterday’s Under 23 road race, while Britain’s Andrew Fenn took the bronze medal.

Federer falls victim to player burnout

Tennis: Roger Federer has withdrawn from next month’s Shanghai Masters to rest “nagging injuries” and ensure a six-week break.

Federer says on his website that he needs “necessary time to rest and recuperate after a long summer.”

The 30-year-old Swiss played two Davis Cup singles matches and a doubles match in Australia last weekend, just days after reaching the semi-final of the US Open in New York, where he lost to Novak Djojkovic.

Federer’s next scheduled match is October 31 at his hometown Swiss Indoor event at Basel.

The 16-time grand slam winner apologized to his fans and says he looks forward to returning to China for the 2012 event.