Hamilton’s new £40m deal

Geraint Thomas became the first Briton to win a stage of the Tour de France on Alpe d’Huez and the first man to win there while wearing the yellow jersey as he extended his overall lead on stage 12.

The Welshman won in an uphill sprint from Team Sunweb’s Tom Dumoulin and AG2R La Mondiale’s Romain Bardet at the end of the 175.5km stage from Bourg-Saint-Maurice. Thomas’s Sky teammate Chris Froome was just behind in fourth.

The quintet had attacked and counterattacked one another on the way up one of cycling’s most famous climbs but were back together in the final few hundred metres, before Thomas accelerated out of the last bend to take the stage win.

“Not even in my wildest dreams did I think I would win on here,” Thomas said. “It’s one of those things that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Thomas won by 2sec from Dumoulin, with Bardet a second behind him and Froome a further second back. With bonus seconds applied, Thomas extends his lead in yellow over Froome by 14sec to 1min 39sec. Lewis Hamilton refused to rule out that championship rivals Ferrari attempted to lure him away from Mercedes.

Hamilton put an end to more than seven months of agonising contract negotiations to finally commit his future to both Formula One and the Silver Arrows with a deal which will see him become the sport’s first £40million-a-year driver.

Hamilton’s new two-season deal will also cement his status as Britain’s biggest sporting earner, with the 33-year-old who was raised on a council estate in Stevenage, set to earn close to £2million a race until the end of 2020.

The announcement comes on the eve of Mercedes’ home event in Germany, with Hamilton trailing Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by eight points.

“In terms of other teams approaching (me), one did, but I didn’t give it any air,” Hamilton said. Pushed on whether the team was Ferrari, he replied: “You can make whatever assumption you want.”

Both Red Bull, who pay Max Verstappen in excess of £20m, and McLaren, the Woking team with which Hamilton started his career, distanced themselves from the Briton’s claim.

Ferrari are the only other constructor which has the financial muscle to compete with Mercedes.