The Italians are not happy these days.

Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali has admitted that his team are going to have to dig deep to recover from their recent trials and troubles in the 2010 F1 season.

Though he is optimistic that they can turn things around. The Maranello squad have scored just 19 points from the last three races and are currently third in the constructors’ standings, trailing championship leaders McLaren by 113 points.

Despite the F10’s improving pace, Ferrari left Silverstone empty handed, after a problematic start and drive-through penalty for Fernando Alonso and tyre issues for Felipe Massa saw the duo finish in 14th and 15th respectively. Speaking during a conference at the factory, Domenicali urged the team to stay positive and work even harder.

“We are angry that we did not get the results which we were capable of delivering, but this anger must be turned into a positive force,” he said. “We must remain rational. We must not let ourselves be discouraged nor frustrated. We just have to knuckle down and continue with the development of the car, working calmly, with great concentration and determination. Then, the results will come.”

Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo, who was also in attendance, is equally keen for the squad to put recent problems behind them and focus on forthcoming races.

“There is no point in crying about it and I want the team to tackle the…”

Yep, just in case you didn’t know, the third Grand Slam of the tennis calendar has begun.

The 2010 Wimbledon Championship is finally underway and it will carry on until July 4th. It is widely accepted as the most important tournament on the pro tennis calendar. Over the years, top-ranked players of every generation have dominated the courts at the All-England club.

Who do you think will win it all this season? As always, Roger Federer comes to mind. Federer has been set as the No. 1 overall seed at the 2010 Wimbledon tournament at the All England Club and will be a heavy favorite this year. He is the defending men’s champion at Wimbledon after a historic final match against American Andy Roddick at the 2009 tournament.

After a disappointing run at the 2010 French Open, Federer will look to rebound from the heartbreaking loss in his favorite tournament of the year. Despite some inconsistent results in 2010, Federer remains the best player on fast surfaces.

Roger is especially good on grass court, like Rafael Nadal is on clay, having won 6 of the last 7 Wimbledon titles including five in a row from 2003-2007. This is mainly due to the fact the great Swiss player has a game that is a perfect fit for grass. Federer is one of the best servers in the game, if not the best, and his powerful forehand is a huge weapon on this surface.

If Roger Federer were to defend his Wimbledon title, he will have to once again contend with his nemesis Rafael Nadal. The hardworking Spaniard has just completed an undefeated clay court season, culminated with a terrific victory at the French Open. Nadal will look to repeat what he managed to pull off two years ago which was to win both the…

Sure, he had his glory days with the Titans but the Ravens were the last team to give the guy a chance before his untimely death last Sunday.

In what has been one of the more shocking news of the 4th of July weekend, former NFL quarterback Steve McNair was killed in Nashville, Tennessee due to fatal gunshot wounds.

You read it, the NFL lost one of its football heroes last Sunday when McNair, who was 36, was found dead by the police in his condominium in Nashville. McNair was shot four times, twice in the head and twice in the chest.

The police is ruling it a homicide after they found the lifeless body of the former Baltimore Ravens quarterback along with his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, who was also shot in the head. The police also found a semi-automatic pistol underneath Kazemi’s body.

According to the police, there were no signs of forced entry into the Nashville apartment but they didn’t speculate in their statement on whether Kazumi is believed to have murdered McNair and committed suicide.

”While it is clear McNair’s death is a homicide, the…”

Happy 4th of July people.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again when the proud U – S – of – A celebrate its day of independence. And while some of the more patriotic Americans wave their little flags and light up a firecracker or two on the 4th of July weekend, some will watch two men make a fool of themselves by eating a butt-load of hot dogs while they bet on it as if it was the freakin’ Super Bowl.

Since everybody was so into this entire thing last year, (you have ESPN to blame for that…) Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi will once again try to find out who loves ‘em hot dogs the most in the now 94th Annual Nathan’s Hot dog Eating Contest.

This eating contest has become a tradition in New York, gaining international exposure and impressive spectator numbers with 30,000 people showing up to watch the entire thing last year. And with the popularity, the sports betting world has taken notice and bettors look forward to having a little fun with it this year and basically every other year as well.

Online sportsbook SPORTSBETTING.COM is offering up a number of prop bets and wagering options for the event, with some very cool betting offers. As you might expect, most of the betting focus surrounds the rivalry between the two top contestants (the only two people who have won the competition the past eight years) Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi.

As it stands, Joey Chestnut is listed as the…

Yes, he’s coming back.

Lance Armstrong, probably the most popular cyclist in the United States, since the country doesn’t really have that much, will ride the 2009 Tour de France after a long hiatus from the sport.

The Tour begins on the 4th of July and Lance Armstrong, probably celebrating his own Independence Day after finally ending his relationship with the singer Sheryl Crow, figured getting his ass back on a bicycle is the best way to let the rest of the world know that he’s back running his life. Hee hee.

”If you’ve been away for three or four years, it would be silly for anybody to think I could pick up where I left off,” Lance Armstrong said in a telephone interview from Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

”I can tell you I feel better than ever, I feel stronger than ever on Dec. 1. How that translates to racing, we’ll have to see. Mentally, in terms of motivation, this feels like 1998-1999 to me.”

Armstrong, who’ll likely join 2007 Tour champion Alberto Contador in the Astana team, will be a part of one of the most star-studded lineups in France. Joining Armstrong and Contador is Germany’s Andreas Kloeden, American veteran Levi Leipheimer and top support rider Yaroslav Popovych.

The Astana cycling team, now considered by far the strongest multistage team EVER, is so ridiculously powerful they might…

Finally, after all that doping allegations, I think it’s safe to talk about the Tour De France now without mentioning steroids OR Barry Bonds.

Yep, the 2007 Tour De France just finished Stage 14 and with only six more to go, it looks like we finally have someone to root for and of course, BET ON. That is of course, if you’d rather watch a couple of guys in skin-tight shorts racing.

A Michael Rasmussen is quickly becoming the odds-on favorite to win the 2007 Tour De France after widening his gap from the rest of the pack after finishing second fastest in the 14th stage of the season last Sunday.

Oh yeah, he’s starting to resemble Tour De France legend Lance Armstrong too, leading this year’s standings and getting a podium finish during last Sunday’s race at Plateau de Beille wearing the familiar yellow colors Mr. Armstrong used to wear. That’s when Armstrong was still racing and wasn’t sick and tired of Sheryl Crow yet.

Rasmussen’s second-place win at Plateau de Beille enabled him to follow a path blazed by the seven-time Tour De France champion…

7-Eleven Kwik-E-Marts? Now that’s originality if I ever saw one.

Yep, with the month of July already here and the celebration of the United States’ Independence Day draws near, 7-Elevens across the country are turning into these fictional Kwik-E-Marts made famous by the cartoon TV series, ”The Simpsons.” (Hey, at least July ain’t about another Will Smith-alien movie right?)

Apparently, these 7-Elevens decided to turn into real-life Kwik-E-Marts in preparation for the grand opening of ”The Simpsons Movie” on July 27. (And in case you didn’t get it, it has no connection whatsoever with the celebration of July 4 on Wednesday…)

He he… It seems this new Simpsons movie is more important than the United States’ Independence Day huh? He he… Well, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie did made all of us laugh so I guess paying homage to those guys THIS WAY is reasonable enough.

The 6,000-plus 7-Elevens in North America will sell items that until now existed only on the Simpsons cartoon; Buzz Cola, KrustyO’s cereal and Squishees, the slushy drink knockoff of Slurpees.

”We thought if you really want to do something different, the idea of actually changing…”

It’s bad enough that the road to American independence was long and hard-won for our forefathers. What’s even worse is that the roads during Independence Day are jammed, overcrowded, and straight out of a road-based action movie. Which movie? It depends on how you make it out there. Hit the road, Jack.

1- Mad Max. For the Fourth of July holiday, some 40.7 million Americans are travelling at least 50 miles from home, 80% of them by land. The Interstate Highway System’s  50th anniversary on the same weekend makes it a double whammy. You slug it out in your Pursuit Special (a Ford Falcon), and run into Tina Turner at some point.

2- Steve McQueen. As an obvious result of the calendar, this year is the first time since 2002 that Independence Day is not part of a 3-day weekend. So you take a 5-day weekend, and find time to do the car chase in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase in The Great Escape. Your longer holiday helps tourism, and your chase scenes become classic.

3- Keanu Reeves. Many stayed home to avoid missing work on Monday, the same day oil prices soared to over $73/barrel. You take a Santa Monica public bus out of Hawaii and California, where gas is most expensive in all 50 states. You speed over to South Carolina and Oklahoma, where gas is cheapest, but a two-year time warp takes you back to Sandra Bullock.

4- Y Tu Mama Tambien. 2006 4th of July is the biggest vacation travel weekend of the summer. Oceans and beaches are the most preferred destinations, followed by small towns and rural areas. You take off to a secluded beach on the Oaxaca coast of Mexico, with some waif you’ve convinced that you are Gael Garcia Bernal / Diego Luna.

5- Samuel L. Jackson. Some 49% of all traffic deaths in the 2004 Fourth of July holiday were the result of…

Those wacky bookies at Intertops want you to plan your next 4th of July RIGHT NOW! They?ve set an over/under number of 50 for the amount of hot dogs Kobayashi [warning: sound] will slam on July 4th 2006. Not a bad line since he leisurely polished off 49 last Monday. Sometime between ESPN?s coverage of The Great Outdoor Games and Major League Baseball, the sports network will provide you live play-by-play of the flaxen-haired legend

Death by Fireworks Discharge odds: 1-in-615,488 What Are the Odds of Dying? [NSC]