Geraint Thomas wins Tour de France 2018

Pausing at times along the way for a swig of Champagne, Geraint Thomas rode triumphantly, completing the final stage of the Tour de France and becoming the first Welshman to win the famed race. After years of being a supportive teammate to other Team Sky riders, like four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome, Thomas’s turn to win his first Tour de France arrived at the age of 32.

Thomas and the peloton completed the arduous, three-week race with a largely ceremonial 72-mile ride on the Champs Elysees. Thomas beat Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands by 1:51. Thomas’s Team Sky teammate, Froome, was third, 2:24 behind Thomas, who joins Froome (2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017) and Bradley Wiggins (2012) as the only British men to win the race. Six of the last seven Tours have been won by British riders.

Thomas has been known for grit and determination that surpasses what is the norm for cyclists. He rode in the 2013 Tour with a broken pelvis, saying it was “the worst pain I’ve ever experienced on a bike.” In 2005, he suffered a ruptured spleen when he was struck by a piece of metal during a ride in Australia. He has never finished better than 15th in a grand tour, partly because he has usually played a supportive role to his teammates.

Peter Sagan won the Green Jersey, the sprinter Jersey with 477 points. Julian Alaphilippe won the White with Red Polka dots Jersey, King of the mountains Jersey. Pierre Roger Latour won the White Jersey, the fastest overall rider under the age of 25. Best team Jersey was awarded to Movistar Team. Daniel Martin from UAE Team Emirates won the Super Combative Jersey.

F1 2018: Lewis Hamilton wins Hungary Grand Prix

Even as he was recording his 77th pole position, there were few who thought that the British driver would maintain that position 24 hours later. But a nerve display from Ferrari allowed Hamilton to fairly cruise to his 67th win, sharing the podium with chief rival Sebastian Vettel and team mate Kimi Raikkonen.

It had looked set to be a Mercedes one-two with six laps left to go. But Vettel used DRS to sweep past Valtteri Bottas into Turn 1. When the Finn tried to fight back into Turn 2, he locked up and clipped Vettel. The German continued, pulling Raikkonen through with him, as Bottas dropped to fourth with a damaged front wing.

Three laps later, Bottas hit Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull as the Australian tried to make a move into Turn 1 to mark a messy end of the race for the Finn, who ended up in fifth – a position he retained even with the 10-second time penalty he received post-race for his role in the incident. Ricciardo, on the other hand, will have been delighted to finish fourth, having started the race down in P12.

Pierre Gasly drove a great Grand Prix to finish in sixth for Toro Rosso, comfortably leading home Kevin Magnussen in the Haas, while Fernando Alonso gave McLaren something to smile about, coming home P8. The Renault of Carlos Sainz and the Haas of Romain Grosjean rounded out the top 10. Up at the front though, it was Hamilton who claimed his sixth Hungarian Grand Prix victory, which puts the Hungaroring joint with Montreal’s Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve as the British driver’s top hunting ground on the F1 calendar.

F1 2018: Lewis Hamilton wins German Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel has achieved many things in his career, but prior to race the Ferrari driver had never won nor led more than a handful of laps at Hockenheim - a venue only a handful of miles from where he grew up.

Hamilton, who had never previously won from outside the top six on the grid, led home team mate Valtteri Bottas to give the Silver Arrows their first ever one-two on home soil. In doing so Hamilton also equaled Michael Schumacher’s record of four German GP wins, as the seven-time world champion’s former team Ferrari had to make do with third place for Kimi Raikkonen.

Behind Vettel and Bottas are Kimi Raikkonen, the former’s teammate at Ferrari, and Max Verstappen of Red Bull. Verstappen’s teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, knew going into qualifying that he was going to be at the back of the grid due to a power unit replacement on his car.

Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean of the American-owned Haas F1 team qualified fifth and sixth, respectively, ahead of both Renault cards. The Sauber of Charles Leclerc once again made it into the third qualifying session, and will line up ninth alongside Sergio Perez and his Force India to round out the Top 10. With it an eight-point deficit to Vettel in the championship was converted into a 17-point advantage, while Ferrari’s misery was completed as Mercedes reclaimed the lead in the constructors’ race by eight points.

German MotoGP 2018: Marc Marquez wins 9th straight race

Marc Marquez has re-written another piece of history, storming the Sachsenring from a ninth pole in a row to take his ninth win in a row across all classes. Valentino Rossi took second and maintains his second place in the standings after an impressive bounce back with the podium completed by teammate Maverick Vinales.

At lights out it was Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team) who got the holeshot from pole, moving from third into the lead as Danilo Petrucci (Alma Pramac Racing) slotted into second – with Marquez shuffled back into third. Rossi made a good start from sixth to move into fourth ahead of teammate Vinales, with Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) the key man to lose out from fifth.

Petrucci top Independent Team rider in a well-fought fourth, just ahead of Alvaro Bautista (Angel Nieto Team)’s stunning ride to fifth. Bautista was the fastest man on track for a good number of laps and kept that incredible form to the end, the final man able to muscle past Lorenzo by the flag.

Lorenzo took P6 ahead of a tough day for teammate Andrea Dovizioso, with Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team) putting in a solid ride to eighth. Johann Zarco (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) improved from his worst qualifying of the season so far to take ninth despite the difficult weekend, with an incredible ride from Bradley Smith (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) putting the Brit in tenth to take KTM’s first top ten of the season.

Hafizh Syahrin (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) was top rookie in eleventh and takes over at the top of the Rookie of the Year standings, ahead of Andrea Iannone (Team Suzuki Ecstar), who was caught in an early incident that saw Pol Espargaro (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) make contact with Alex Rins (Team Suzuki Ecstar) and both go down; also affecting Iannone and Jack Miller (Alma Pramac Racing. Miller finished P14, with Tito Rabat (Reale Avintia Racing) between him and Iannone. Scott Redding (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini) completed the points.

Novak Djokovic wins 4th Wimbledon Title

It took Novak Djokovic five minutes to break Kevin Anderson serve but he could not break his admirable resistance over two hours and 19 minutes in a Wimbledon final memorable only for the South African dogged but doomed fight back.

Anderson, troubled early in the match by a sore right elbow, was forced to endure one of the most grueling afternoons of his career but Djokovic suffered too, swearing at the crowd as his frustrations consumed him before he secured his 13th grand slam title, his fourth here, winning 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (3).

Shattered after surviving six hours and 35 minutes against John Isner in the first semi-final on Friday, Anderson – the 2017 US Open runner-up – refused to surrender in his second major final and dug deep to make a fight of it in the third set, although it was still a poor spectacle. The longest rally of the match lasted 15 shots, as Anderson strove to hold serve at 0-2 in the second set. There were the usual sympathetic cheers when he managed it, but pointlessness and inevitability hung heavily in the suffocating air.

Of the 950 points he had served for in the championships, Anderson, a serving behemoth and decent athlete, chose to remain on the baseline for 920 of them. That is either unshakable faith in his ability to hit opponents off the court, tactical ineptitude, exhaustion, or a combination of all three. Not once in the first hour of this match did he come in behind his serve. Neither did Djokovic – but he have no need to; he won through with patience rather than inspiration.

F1 2018: Sebastian Vettel wins British Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton’s hopes of a record sixth British Grand Prix looked to be in tatters after Kimi Raikkonen pitched him into a spin at the start. The Mercedes driver recovered to second in spectacular fashion but it was title rival Sebastian Vettel who took the ultimate spoils with a superbly measured performance.

Mercedes gave themselves a chance of snatching back the win by leaving Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas out when the Safety Car was called into action late in the race, while Ferrari and Red Bull pitted for fresh tyres. And for a few laps, it looked like it may work as Bottas held off Vettel, with Hamilton to third. But ultimately, Vettel had too much pace on the softer tyres and after eyeing his prey for a few laps, brilliantly snatched the lead from Bottas. Hamilton also moved past the Finn, but he didn’t have the performance to attack Vettel and had to settle for second with Raikkonen third.

It was Vettel’s 51st victory, moving him level with four-time world champion Alain Prost in third in the all-time list. The German extends his championship lead over Hamilton to eight points heading to his home race at Hockenheim. It’s the first time it’s been more than a point ahead since the Chinese Grand Prix.

Raikkonen made short work of the Mercedes for the final podium place, with Bottas managing to hold onto fourth. Daniel Ricciardo was fifth, with Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen on course to beat him, only to be told to retire the car with a suspected gearbox issue, the Dutchman having moments earlier spun at the penultimate corner. Nico Hulkenberg was sixth, ahead of Esteban Ocon with Fernando Alonso making into the points for the second successive race and Pierre Gasly completing the top 10 and scoring points for the third time this year - albeit under investigation for a late-race clash with Sergio Perez.

Dutch MotoGP 2018: Marc Marquez wins to extend Championship lead

Marc Marquez won the most nail biting race of the 2018 season in front of a packed housed at Assen. The Repsol Honda rider started the race on pole, but it was Jorge Lorenzo, who stole the limelight. The Ducati rider made a lightning start, which catapulted him from tenth to second place as the riders made their way through the first corner. Valentino Rossi, who had been pushed back to fifth place at the start of the race, was showing good pace as he carved his way past the grid in fifth place and in the second lap of the race, took second place from Marquez.

Despite having a clear track in front, Lorenzo wasn’t able to break away from the grid as he normally does. Rossi was close on Lorenzo’s rear, putting the Spanish rider under tremendous pressure. The front tyre of Lorenzo’s bike washed out, but the Ducati rider somehow saved himself from crashing out. While Lorenzo still led the race, Rossi lost momentum in the incident and was pushed down to fifth place.

Suzuki rider, Alex Rins was on the charge and he muscled his way past Marquez and was trailing the Ducati duo of Lorenzo and Dovizioso by the halfway stage of the race. With 12 laps remaining in the race, Dovizioso overtook his teammate to lead the race. In the following two laps, Marquez regained his position and it looked like a three-way battle for the race win.

The only rider who could come close to Marquez’s pace was Rossi, but he ran wide off the track in an attempt to defend second position from Dovizioso. Rins managed to pass Vinales in the last lap, to clinch his best result in premiere class. It was Marquez’s ninth podium finish at the Dutch circuit and he now extends his championship lead over Rossi by 41 points. The next race is at Sachsenring, which is one of Marquez’s favourite racetracks, and he looks on course to extend his winning run in Germany.

F1 2018: Max Verstappen wins Austria Grand Prix

Mercedes looked like they had the Austrian Grand Prix sewn up. But disaster struck in spectacular fashion as Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton both retired. Max Verstappen took advantage and seized his first win of the season, to the delight of the swathes of Dutch fans that had made the pilgrimage to the Red Bull Ring.

Hamilton’s record 33-races-in-the-points streak came to a shuddering stop while he also relinquished the lead of the championship, with Sebastian Vettel - who finished third behind Ferrari team mate Kimi Raikkonen - overturning a 14-point deficit to lead by a single point. Verstappen took advantage of Mercedes’ misfortune to take a fourth career victory, the Red Bull driver inheriting the lead, having previously put a good early move on Raikkonen, and then managing his tyres beautifully as several of his rivals struggled with blistering.

Meanwhile, Ricciardo had pitted, too, as his soft tyres started to blister in what were the warmest conditions of the weekend. Hamilton was struggling, too, and Vettel pounced to take third. After complaining about his tyres for several laps, Mercedes pitted the world champion for a second time and fitted the supersofts. He rejoined in fifth, behind Ricciardo. But that became fourth when Ricciardo pulled off the track, saying on team radio that he had lost gear sync.

That promoted Romain Grosjean to a brilliant fourth; the best ever result for Haas, one place ahead of team mate Kevin Magnussen, with Verstappen comfortably leading the Ferrari duo of Raikkonen and Vettel up front. Force India’s Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez were sixth and seventh respectively, with Fernando Alonso charging from a pit-lane start to an impressive eighth. Charles Leclerc lost a bunch of time when he ran into the gravel at the start but recovered to take ninth – his fourth points finish in five races – with Sauber team mate Marcus Ericsson taking 10th in what is only his second time in the points in 2018.