After “walking on water” in Monza, Kimi Antonelli faces an entirely different challenge at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix as he bids to continue his record-breaking assault on the world championship.

The 20-year-old, who last Sunday became the first Italian to win his home race at Monza since 1966, drives into uncharted territory as the Spanish capital hosts a race for the first time since June 1981, when the legendary Gilles Villeneuve won for Ferrari at Jarama.

This Sunday’s race is to be held at the spectacular newly-completed Madring semi-street circuit, built in an exhibition centre close to Barajas airport.

It is the final Grand Prix in the European section of the season and will be the second in Spain this year after May’s race at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The track is unlikely to deliver a dull or predictable spectacle, with its very fast opening sector followed by several medium and low-speed corners, including 90-degree turns that are expected to create incidents.

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen, buoyed by finishing third last week, where Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff had forecast Antonelli would “walk on water” to win from 19th on the grid, said he expected many crashes and stoppages.

“It’s going to be very difficult,” said Verstappen after trying the track on a simulator.

“It’s not an easy track. If you do a few laps in a row, it’s always hard to cross the line and say ‘I nailed the lap’.

“It’s very hard. It also has a tendency to create some big shunts in some places.”

‘La Monumental’ will attract attention

The circuit’s newly-laid asphalt surface will add to the challenge, being likely to offer little grip, but it is La Monumental, a high-speed banked, horseshoe shaped corner, that should attract attention.

It is 550 metres long and has a blind crest on the exit.

“The characteristics are much closer to somewhere like Budapest or Zandvoort,” said Wolff, whose team have won nine of the opening 13 races.

“We are therefore expecting a very close-fought weekend.”

Of those nine, Antonelli has won seven, a single-season record for an Italian driver, and title rival George Russell, now 66 points adrift, two.

The others were won by world champion Lando Norris, with two, and the Ferrari drivers — Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.

Ferrari visited Madrid in July for a filming day when the circuit was unfinished.

“It was very hot and very dusty,” said Hamilton, third in the drivers’ standings but now 76 points behind Antonelli.

“It looks like it will be a qualifying lap kind of circuit… “There’s not really any straights so it’s a difficult place to overtake.”

Madrid-born Williams driver Carlos Sainz, who is an ambassador for the circuit, echoed Verstappen’s view when he said he expected to see many safety car interventions, red flag stoppages and yellow flags.

He and Fernando Alonso will carry home hopes, but with little conviction after a series of disappointing results that suggest there are unlikely to be too many surprises.

That is unlikely to seriously worry a massive crowd with more than 350,000 expected to attend overall.

Red Bull will be without Isack Hadjar, recovering from a broken wrist, for a third consecutive race, with Liam Lawson substituting while Yuki Tsunoda continues in his place at Racing Bulls.

It will be the first new circuit in use since the introduction of Las Vegas three years ago, the sixth to host a Spanish Grand Prix and the 78th different track on the F1 circuit since 1950. AFP

Rawalpindi  –  District Health Authority (DHA) Rawalpindi has sealed 594 commercial and residential properties and registered 2,223 First Information Reports (FIRs) as part of an intensified enforcement campaign against dengue SOP violations and vector breeding, official records showed on Wednesday.

Besides property sealings and case  registrations to police, health inspectors issued 1,862 challans and imposed Rs. 2,312,000.0 fines

According the updated data, 1,400 field surveillance teams consisting of 415 outdoor and 985 indoor units, as many as 155,071 total larval sites out of 134,633 houses, and 20,438 public spots after inspecting 4.59 million residences were identified positive. Moreover, 1.58 million public locations were also identified positive with dengue larvae.

The report shows high-density larva detection was concentrated across Misrial Road, Afshan Colony, Allama Iqbal Colony, Dhamyal, Naseerabad, Dhoke Mustaqeem, Pirwadhai, Morgah and Chak Jilal Din.

The enforcement campaign accompanies complete field coverage of all 17,859 Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) registered hotspots. Entomological monitoring indicated that 41 Union Councils currently exceed a Breteau Index (BI) threshold of 10, while 26 UCs recorded a BI between 7 and 10.

On patient registration and recovery front, the data confirms six total dengue cases have been recorded as yet by screening 3,854 patients so far.

Total screening included 3,555 suspected patients, 292 non-dengue patients and 1 probable patient. However, no fatalities have been reported as no new cases were reported during the months of August and September.

The data shows that out total 6 confirmed cases, four were recorded in July from areas including Dhoke Hassu Janobi, Kotha Kallan and Kountrila.

The report further shows that Misrial Road, Allama Iqbal Colony and Afshan colony remained high larvae detection areas, all localities in Rawalpindi Cantonment Board jurisdiction. 

The health authorities spokesman urged citizens to strictly follow dengue SOPs to prevent larvae production.

Rawalpindi  –  A nine-year-old schoolgirl was killed after run over by a Green Bus, a service run by Punjab government, on Adiala Road on Wednesday as she along with her sister and father was returning from school on a motorcycle.

Ayesha Maqbool, 9, died on the spot near Munawar Colony after his father Muhammad Hussain’s bike was struck by a Green Bus and she fell from the bike and the bus crushed the little school, said eye witnesses.

The wailing of the father and the accident sight enraged the public and angry crowd started smashing the bus after the driver escaped from the scene. Multiple videos circulating on social media showed young men smashing the bus and breaking its window glass as some tried to put it on fire.

 In one video, some people area seen throwing water on the bus to put off the fire.

As it was a school off time, the accident led to traffic congestion. Rescue 1122 staff shifted the dead body to Benazir Bhutto Hospital, where her postmortem was carried out.

A police officer said that Ayesha was a student of a FG school in Lal Kurti and was returning home in Jahrahi after attending the school. The police was yet to lodge an FIR till filing of this report.

In another incident, Advocate Sanaullah Satti was found dead in his car parked in the parking area of district judicial complex on Wednesday morning.

The lawyers and the police said that Satti apparently met a nautral death under mysterious circumstances. The police said that forensic and medical investigation will reveal what led to the death of the lawyer. 

Iran said on Wednesday it had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the US sank five Iranian oil tankers, ‌in the biggest wave of attacks on shipping by both sides since the start of the six-month-old war.

The attacks sent the price of oil surging, with benchmark Brent crude futures breaching $100 a barrel for the first time since July. At least one seafarer aboard a tanker was reported killed and another listed as missing.

The incidents follow a month of relative calm, during which the US has sought to pressure Iran through economic means.

Iran said it had fired ballistic missiles at a US military base in ​Jordan. Jordan said it intercepted 18 missiles, with the remaining two falling harmlessly in unpopulated areas. A US official said all American troops were accounted for.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it would ​sharply escalate its response to any further attacks, and said Iran would soon release maps of a new, enlarged off-limits zone at sea that would extend ⁠as far as Chabahar on the coast near Pakistan.

President Donald Trump said Tehran was trying to influence the November US midterm elections, which will determine whether his Republican Party retains control of Congress.

“I think war ​is going to end immediately after the election because they can’t hold out any longer. They’re desperate to try and affect the election,” he told reporters.

The Wall Street Journal reported later on Wednesday that top White ​House advisers, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have privately warned Trump that the conflict could extend through the remainder of his presidency, which ends in January 2029. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

In recent days there has also been an escalation in fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen, a second theater of war that threatens global energy supplies from the Middle East.

VIDEO SHOWS IRANIAN TANKERS ABLAZE

The American military said it destroyed five ​Iranian oil tankers overnight, releasing video of ships ablaze before they sank. The Central Command called its attacks a response to the Revolutionary Guard targeting a U.S. Navy warship twice with ballistic missiles. No Americans ​were harmed, the US said.

Washington has announced a new policy of attacking Iranian tankers in retaliation for fire that threatens its warships, and says it has hit 10 so far over the past week.

One seafarer was killed aboard the oil products tanker Hercules Star while at anchorage off Dubai and another crew member was missing, the vessel’s charterer, Peninsula, said.

The British maritime security agency UKMTO described a vessel in the vicinity that was listing after being struck by a projectile. Reuters could not immediately determine whether this referred to the same ship.

Two Iraqi port officials said a tanker carrying 2 million barrels of fuel oil, the New ​Andros, had caught fire after being struck by a ​drone in Iraqi waters. There were no ⁠reports of casualties among the 22 crew.

The UKMTO said it had received reports of several merchant ships struck by disabling fire in the northern Gulf and Gulf of Oman, on either side of the Strait of Hormuz.

A maritime security source reported a liquefied natural gas tanker was damaged in the Emirati port of Khor Fakkan.

An ​explosion was heard in the southern part of the Iranian port city of Jask, coming from the sea, Iran’s Fars news agency reported late on ​Wednesday. It said no details were ⁠available on the source or cause of the blast.

STRAIT CHOKED OFF

In recent weeks Washington had boasted of increasing success guiding tankers through the strait, which carried a fifth of oil supplies before the war. But any such gradual reopening appears to have been set back by a resumption of fighting this month.

Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at consultancy Rystad Energy, said flows through Hormuz had fallen as low as 2 million barrels per day, having reached as ⁠high as 8 ​million to 9 million bpd in the week before fighting resumed on August 30.

Even more severe than the rise in crude ​prices has been a surge in the cost of the fuels refined from it. The average retail price of U.S. diesel hit a fresh all-time high on Wednesday above $5.94 a gallon.

LAHORE – Karachi Basketball Association (KBBA) School, Colleges and Universities Coordinator Asad Ibad Ali visited New Falcon Sports Complex, Malir, on the directives of KBBA Patron and Karachi Sports Commissioner Haji Ghulam Muhammad Khan. During the visit, Syed Yusuf gave Asad Ibad Ali a detailed tour of the sports complex and introduced him to basketball players and coaches. Asad appreciated the excellent basketball facilities at the complex and the enthusiastic participation of a large number of boys and girls in the sport. He also briefed the players about the KBBA’s upcoming activities, including coaching camps, festival matches and boys’ and girls’ basketball tournaments. He said the association would continue taking concrete steps to provide young players with better opportunities and further promote basketball across Karachi. Asian Masters Squash champion Jahangir Khan Junior, Ghulam Din and Falcon Basketball Complex coach Zebi were also present on the occasion. The visit concluded with a dinner hosted by Syed Yusuf in honour of the guests.