F1 2018: Max Verstappen wins Mexico Grand Prix

The Champagne and the big trophy in Mexico City went to Max Verstappen, the Dutchman driving an exemplary race to repeat his 2017 victory. But while it was a fifth race win for Verstappen, it was a fifth title win for Lewis Hamilton, the British driver’s fourth place enough to see him crowned champion with two races to go, becoming only the third ever driver, behind Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher, to claim five world championships.

Verstappen’s win was arguably the most polished of his career so far. He was incisive off the line to pip his pole-sitting team mate Daniel Ricciardo before enjoying a mostly lonely race out at the front of the field. Sebastian Vettel knew that his chances of staying in the title hunt were minimal coming into the race. But despite putting in a fine performance – including executing a terrific move on Hamilton on lap 39 – to finish second, it wasn’t enough for Vettel to deny Hamilton.

Vettel was joined on the podium by his team mate Kimi Raikkonen, the Finn having had a mostly quiet afternoon but doing enough to deny Hamilton a podium finish on his momentous title-winning day. That left the Mercedes boys to finish fourth and fifth, Hamilton ahead of Valtteri Bottas, with Hamilton massively dropping his pace towards the race end to make it home safely and claim the championship.

Some fine midfield performances saw Nico Hulkenberg take sixth – good news for Renault on a day when Haas failed to score – Charles Leclerc finish seventh, while the beleaguered Stoffel Vandoorne was eighth to equal his best performance of the year. But despite a crushing win for Verstappen to put Red Bull on top for the first time since Austria, the plaudits today have to go equally to Hamilton, the British driver now forming part of an exceptionally rare group of Formula 1 drivers.

Australian MotoGP 2018: Maverick Vinales wins

Yamaha Maverick Vinales produced an exceptional ride to win the Australian MotoGP Grand Prix. Vinales was the strongest rider in the second half of the race and did enough to hold off Suzuki's Andrea Iannone to take Yamaha's first win for 25 races. Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso came home in third.

Recently crowned world champion Marc Marquez started on pole on Sunday but pulled out of the race after a high-speed incident with Johann Zarco. Vinales' Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi had to settle for sixth. Following a frantic start, Jack Miller led the way at the end of the first lap, although Marquez remained in close proximity and was quick to restore his lead.

However, just as the world champion appeared to be finding his groove, his chances were dashed after a crash with Zarco. The latter's front tyre and Marquez's rear tyre came into contact, prompting Zarco to be thrown from his bike. The Honda man somehow stayed upright but had to retire in the pits not long afterwards.

Iannone and Dovizioso did emerge from that group to put pressure on Vinales late on, the battling they had done for second meant that life had been taken from their tyres. As such, they were never seriously in a position to challenge for the victory. In the end, the Yamaha man was able to hold off a fast-finishing Iannone with relative ease to clinch his first win since Le Mans in 2017. Victory for Vinales cements his spot in fourth in the world championship standings. He is now just 30 and 15 points behind Dovizioso and Rossi, respectively.

F1 2018: Kimi Raikkonen wins USA Grand Prix

It was set up as the day when Lewis Hamilton would seal a fifth world title. Instead, the United States Grand Prix will be remembered for another piece of history as the day when Ferrari Kimi Raikkonen brilliantly broke a 112 race winless streak.

The Finn, whose last victory came all the way back in Australia 2013, 2044 days earlier, came out on top of a titanic three-way battle with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes driver Hamilton at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas to claim his 21st career victory and become, at 39, F1’s oldest race winner since Nigel Mansell in 1994.

Behind Raikkonen, Verstappen put his qualifying woes behind him as he crossed the line 1.2s back to cap a superb drive through the field from 18th on the grid, while Hamilton – who started from pole and led during the middle phase of the race – was forced to settle for third after needing to make one more pit stop than his rivals. Hamilton will now look to Mexico next weekend as his chance to clinch the 2018 drivers’ crown, with his gap to rival Sebastian Vettel stretched to 70 points by virtue of another scruffy race for the Ferrari star.

Vettel started fifth but was 15th at the end of lap one after another first-lap spin, this time following contact with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo while battling for fourth. The German recovered to finish fourth, passing the second Silver Arrow of Valtteri Bottas late on, but even if he wins in Mexico next weekend he will be powerless to stop Hamilton from beating him to becoming just the third man in history to secure five titles if the Briton scores five or more points there.

Japan MotoGP 2018: Marc Marquez crowned World Champion

Repsol Honda Marc Marquez has been crowned as the 2018 MotoGP World Champion after a nail biting finish in the Japanese Grand Prix. The Honda rider won the fourth last race of the season fighting against Ducati Andrea Dovizioso. The last lap though is where Marquez managed to lead the race as Dovizioso crashed while in second place.

With the Japanese GP under his belt, the Honda rider takes his seventh world championship title at the manufacturer's home turf and his fifth world title in the premier class series. Marquez now equals Mike Doohan's world titles but is still behind Valentino Rossi's seven and Giacomo Agostini's eight titles.

The 24 lap race started with Dovizioso on pole while Marquez started only sixth at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit. A brilliant start allowed Marquez to move up to second on the opening lap as he closes in on the race leader. Behind him were Danilo Petrucci and Jack Miller at P3 and P4 respectively, while Yamaha's Valentino Rossi jumped to sixth having started at ninth on the grid.

Dovi and Iannone crash promoted Rossi to fourth, down by five seconds over the race leader, while Alvaro Bautista on the Nieto Ducati took a career best fifth, having started 11th on the grid. Tech3 Yamaha's Johann Zarco finished sixth after a bad start, but recovered to the position after dropping to outside the top 10 in the race.

Vijay Hazare Trophy 2018

The Mumbai-Delhi final had its share of drama, for most parts, an exciting swing here, swing there contest where bowlers dictated terms, only for Mumbai to emerge victorious and win their first Vijay Hazare title since 2007 at the back of a 105 run partnership by two of their least utilized players in tournament.

There were times in the game when Delhi threatened to wrestle the control from Mumbai. Himmat Singh threatened with a 65-ball 41 before Tare's lightening quick work behind the stumps ended his stay. Suboth Bhati did too after he was caught off a no-ball. It was bizarre that Tushar Deshpande went on a celebration and extended a send-off to the batsman who had mistimed a swat to mid-off.

But all this while, Delhi was only threatening to seize control, nothing much. It was Navdeep Saini's first spell which completely turned the course of the contest. On a lively wicket, he bowled seven uninterrupted overs with the new ball - picking the wickets of Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane and Suryakumar Yadav, the last of which was controversial.

Mumbai's much-famed top order had lost the battle to Delhi's in-form new ball duo, and left their middle order constants to pull them out of quicksand. Neither Tare nor Lad had spent enough time in the middle all through the series, with the top order doing the bulk of the job. However, when the occasion arrived, they stood up to the challenge.

Together, they took sucked away 105 runs from the target with their fifth wicket alliance, and more or less sealed the fate of the game. Dubey hit some lusty blows towards the end and took the team over the line with four wickets in hand and 91 balls to spare, to help Mumbai's to their third Vijay Hazare Trophy.

F1 2018: Lewis Hamilton wins Japanese Grand Prix

It was a dramatic Japanese Grand Prix for most of the F1 field – but for lights-to-flag victor Lewis Hamilton, it looked to be a serene afternoon, as he swept to his fifth victory in Japan and his fourth at Suzuka while his title rival Sebastian Vettel ended up sixth.

It was Hamilton’s 71st career victory and his 50th for Mercedes, and sees him extend his title lead over Vettel to 67 points, with the German claiming just eight for P6 after a tough race that saw him spin early on following contact with Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Valtteri Bottas backed up his team mate to make it a Mercedes one-two, while Verstappen survived the Vettel contact and another run-in with the other Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen to complete the podium - his third rostrum appearance in Suzuka in as many years. A fantastic recovery drive from Daniel Ricciardo saw the Australian go from P15 on the grid to fourth at the race end, ahead of Raikkonen and Vettel, while Sergio Perez claimed P7 for Force India.

So post-Suzuka, Hamilton now sits 67 points clear of Vettel in the drivers’ standings, meaning that if he outscores Vettel by just eight points at the next race in Austin, he’ll be crowned world champion for the fifth time. And considering that Hamilton has won every race at the Circuit of The Americas since 2014, things aren’t looking too rosy right now for Sebastian Vettel.

Thailand MotoGP 2018: Marquez wins inaugural season

Marc Marquez won a thrilling inaugural Thailand MotoGP to extend his lead in the championship in pursuit of a fifth title. MotoGP champion Marc Marquez snatched the lead from Andrea Dovizioso at the death to win the inaugural Thailand Grand Prix and take a huge stride toward a third successive title.

After fierce wheel-to-wheel racing in the closing laps at Buriram, the Honda-riding Spaniard nosed in front at the last corner and edged the Italian by 0.115 seconds to prevail in a thrilling duel. The win extended the four-times champion's lead to 77 points over Ducati's Dovizioso with four races left, and Marquez can wrap up the series in Japan in two weeks with a win at Motegi.

Marquez now has 271 points, 77 ahead of Dovizioso with a maximum of 100 available in the final four races of season, making him a strong favourite to retain his title. Marquez also made history over the weekend as he became the first rider to climb out of Q1 to claim pole position, the 50th of his stunning career. Thailand's first MotoGP is being held in the rural town of Buri Ram in the northeast, about a five-hour drive from the capital Bangkok.

Buri Ram has seen explosive growth through investment in football and racing sports, and expectations for the event were high. Thousands of hotel rooms and jobs have been created through a football stadium and the 2014 Chang International Circuit, the only Formula One grade track in the country. The town has a population of about 30,000 but more than double that have turned out to see the debut spectacle, which attracted fans from all over the country and abroad.

Women’s Basketball World Cup: USA secures 10th Title

A World Championship three-peat has landed the US women’s basketball team a spot at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Team USA defeated Australia 73-56 in the Championship game of the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in Spain. In doing so, six-time defending Olympic champ Americans also became the first to qualify for Tokyo Olympic Games.

Brittney Griner, a 2016 Olympic gold medalist, scored a game-high 15 points for the U.S. Four-time Olympic gold medalist Diana Taurasi added 13 points and 2016 Olympic gold medalist Breanna Stewart had 10 points and a team-high 8 rebounds. Should the U.S. win Olympic gold in Tokyo it would tie the U.S. men’s record of seven straight from 1936-1968.

The win over Australia finished a six-game unbeaten run through the tournament for Team USA, which now has 10 World Cup titles and three in a row. Since 1996, Team USA has won 100 of 101 games and is now 18-0 against Australia in World Cup and Olympic matches. This was the first time these two teams had met since the 2014 World Cup semifinals where the U.S. 82-70. The U.S. has also won six of the last seven World Cup tournaments (the event was previously called the FIBA World Championship for Women).

Team USA featured a balanced squad, led by veterans and four-time Olympic gold medalists Sue Bird and Taurasi. Bird is the first U.S. player to appear in five World Cups and is now the only person in history with five FIBA World Cup medals. Bird, who had a game-high five assists, celebrated with her teammates on the bench in the closing minutes of Sunday’s game. The team huddled on the court after the game and applauded in the direction of the U.S. fans who were in Santiago Martin Arena.