The French attacker thinks it isn’t his time to win football’s most prestigious individual award, but he feels he could in the future

Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe believes he doesn’t deserve to win this year’s Ballon d’Or but thinks he could clinch the honour as his career progresses.

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The 20-year-old was among 30 players nominated for the award, with Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk favourite to to earn the trophy ahead of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Juventus’ Cristiano Ronaldo.

But Mbappe understands his chances of winning the honour are slim and he thinks he didn’t win enough prestigious trophies to put himself among the favourites.

When asked if he could win the Ballon d’Or this year, Mbappe told Ouest France: “This year? You have to be realistic, I do not deserve it. There are players who have done more.

“With PSG, we did not win all the national titles, in the Champions League, we disappointed.

“Sure, at the individual level, I did win a lot of trophies, but football is not played alone and must accept it. 

“I still have time to win it, I’m in no hurry, it’s not something that haunts me.”

In 2019, Mbappe lifted the Ligue 1 title with PSG, and won the Trophée des Champions, but the Parisians fell short in the Champions League round-of-16 with the heartstopping defeat to Manchester United and also lost against Rennes in the Coupe de France final.

Van Dijk, who became favourite to win the Ballon d’Or after clinching the UEFA men’s player of the year, lifted the Champions League with Liverpool and also only lost one Premier League match as the Reds finished second in the English top-flight.

Barca legend Messi appears to be the most likely to deny the Dutch centre-half, having won FIFA’s The Best award for 2019 and another his 10th league title with the Catalan club.

While Van Dijk is yet to win the prestigious honour, Messi will be looking to earn it for the sixth time, which will put him one ahead of perennial individual trophy rival Cristiano Ronaldo.

Three players – Michel Platini, Johan Cryuff and Marco van Basten – have won the award three times, while Frank Beckenbauer, Ronaldo, Alfredo Di Stefano and Kevin Keegan are the only other multiple-time winners.

The Ballon d’Or will be presented by France Football at a ceremony in Paris on December 2.

Pirelli’s wet weather tyres are a work in progress, with a revised compound set to be introduced in China, according to motorsport boss Paul Hembery.

As the official tyre supplier to F1, one of Pirelli’s mandates this year has been to improve the quality of its wet rubber, while also managing a change in tyre structure and width on the back of F1’s 2017 rule change.

Drivers have confirmed an improvement in the wet tyre’s performance and quality, but Pirelli is still determined to work on further improvements.

“We have to change the working range of the compounds,” said Hembery.

“We were going to do that on the full rain tyre anyway. It was something we had been working on, particularly knowing we have got the standing start [after safety cars].

• ‘Wets are working, inters are getting destroyed,’ says Grosjean

“Plus some of the comments from last season were that the drivers can’t switch them on when they come through. We have been working on that and what we saw today was that the intermediate was also struggling.

“That is an effect of the width of the tyre, because the inter was the one the drivers said, ‘don’t touch, don’t change because we’re very happy with it’.

“Now we know we probably need to alter as well to match it.”

Hembery was hopeful to have a revised wet tyre in time for the China Grand Prix in early April.

“I believe we will have something ready for China in terms of the first compound change here, and what we have been developing will go to the final result as something we can introduce.”

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The French-born forward has been frozen out of the national team picture since 2015 and has been at odds with FFF president Noel Le Graet ever since

Algeria coach Djamel Belmadi has said he is happy with the players at his disposal when asked if he would like to see Karim Benzema lead the line for the Desert Foxes.

The Real Madrid forward, who has 81 caps for France, recently responded to French Football Federation president Noel Le Graet’s assertion that Benzema’s ‘adventure with France is over’.

The striker took to social media, telling Le Graet: “If you think that I am finished, let me play for a country that I am eligible to play for and we will see.”

Of course, being cap-tied to France means that could never happen, but Benzema has been at odds with Le Graet since being frozen out of the French squad since 2015.

His international exclusion was part of the fallout from a sex tape dispute with Mathieu Valbuena that first saw Benzema dropped down the pecking order before eventually being excluded entirely.

The former Lyon forward has maintained his goalscoring form for Real Madrid during his international exile, scoring 30 goals for Los Blancos last season and already has 11 in 15 appearances this term.

Though he was born in France, Benzema is of Algerian descent, which could have seen him represent the country of his ancestry had he not represented Les Bleus in a competitive fixture.

However, when the striker’s comments were put to Fennecs coach Belmadi, the boss pointed to the raft of forward talent he already has within his ranks.

“For now, we have [Baghdad] Bounedjah, Islam [Slimani], [Andy] Delort [and Hillal] Soudani,” the French-born coach, who represented Algeria at international level as a player, told reporters. “I am very happy with the players I have.”

Benzema represented France at every youth level except Under-16s, before scoring on his debut for the senior side in a friendly against Austria in March 2007.

He was part of the France squad for the 2008 and 2012 European Championships, as well as the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

His last appearance for the world champions was a 4-0 friendly win against Armenia in October 2015, where he scored two goals to take his international tally to 27.

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In a spectacular display of multi-tasking, 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg took his victorious W07 for one last spin at a Mercedes function recently while snapping a series of high-speed selfies!

Fortunately, Nico’s wicked ability behind the wheel permitted the heavy duty work but we obviously wouldn’t advise anybody to try this at home…

2016 team-by-team review: Part two

2016 team-by-team review: Part one

Andrew Green: Force India’s smooth operator

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Obviously, we’ll be seeing Red Bull Racing’s new RB13 in the flesh this morning with Daniel Ricciardo behind the wheel, but in the interim here are a couple of some studio pics released by the team.

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Race of Champions 2017

Former FIA president Max Mosley has praised Liberty Media’s decision to appoint Ross Brawn to run the sporting side of Formula One following the exit of Bernie Ecclestone as supremo.

“Ross completely understands the sport and he understands what needs to be done and he’s got an absolutely first class analytical brain,” Mosley told ITV News at last week’s ZOOM Photo Auction gala in London.

“I think he’ll be an enormous asset to them,” adding that it was best if Liberty left Brawn to it and concentrated on sorting out the business aspects of its new acquisition.

“That side [the sporting side] isn’t really what Liberty should be doing. Ross is outstanding so they made a good choice there.”

• Mosley: Liberty should have retained Ecclestone

Brawn cautioned Liberty against making wholesale changes to Formula One before it fully understands the sport’s nature.

“They may be brilliant and they may have the whole thing completely thought through, on the other hand they may find more difficult than they thought,” he said.

“I always imagine if somebody put me in charge of horse racing and said ‘right, you’ve got to sort that out’, it always looks easy from the outside.

“You see all the things that you think they’re doing wrong. And then when you get all the files and the dossiers put in front of you, you find out what’s really going on.”

However, he added that the sport had to evolve and shouldn’t stay stuck in the past.

“Just because something’s been successful doesn’t mean it can’t be done better,” he pointed out.

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Gone but not forgotten. Valtteri Bottas  paid tribute to the team which kick-started his career in Formula 1 and where he spent his formative years.

As the Finn gears up for a new challenge with world champions Mercedes AMG F1, Bottas remembers the four years he spent at Williams.

And while he failed to deliver a win to the Grove-base outfit during his stay, he did enjoy a fruitful relationship which included 9 podiums, 411 points and a 2nd place finish as his best result.

For Bottas, it’s only a matter of time before Williams challenges for the title.

Check out the video posted to Williams’ Twitter account:

.@ValtteriBottas: “I wish all the best to everyone at Williams.” #Williams40 #WeAreRacing pic.twitter.com/04WIjWxVjS

— WILLIAMS RACING (@WilliamsRacing) January 25, 2017

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Ukrainian officials said Tuesday that they would grant entry to a Russian convoy allegedly carrying aid for besieged Ukrainian civilians — once its contents have been inspected by the International Red Cross.

As recently as Tuesday morning, fearing that the convoy could be a Trojan Horse — a pretext for ground invasion or cover for delivery of weapons to pro-Russian separatists on the verge of defeat — Ukrainian officials had said they would not allow the 280 trucks to cross the border.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that the idea had been rejected. “They insisted on reloading the cargo from all 287 trucks to the trucks to be provided by the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] but eventually gave it up for obvious reasons as this would have made the humanitarian mission more complicated and costlier,” Lavrov said, according to the state-owned news agency ITAR-TASS.

With Ukrainian forces closing in on pro-Russian rebels in the eastern part of the country — in a fight that has forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee and left those who remain without drinking water, power, or supplies — the conflict has come to “a decisive point,” Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Danylo Lubkivsky said Tuesday in Kiev.

In turn, Ukrainian and Western forces worry that Russia is using the pretext of humanitarian aid to head off total rebel defeat. 

“Let me be clear — you don’t need tanks and artillery to bring food and medicine for civilians,” Lubkivsky said, referring to reports that the trucks, which departed Tuesday from a Russian military base, are merely repainted versions of green Russian military vehicles bearing the black number plates of the Russian armed forces.