Monaco Grand Prix, Indianapolis 500 & Giro d'Italia

Three iconic sporting events concluded today. All races against the clock - two motorsport, one road cycling.

Giro d'Italia

After the heartbreak of the 2015 Vuelta a Espana, Tom Domoulin finally made it stick! It was a true thriller - the closest Grand Tour ever! After over 90 hours of fighting over 3 weeks, the top 5 cyclists were covered by less than 2 minutes! Quintana laid down the gauntlet in Stage 9 with a stunning win, only to be destroyed by Dumoulin the very next stage - the long time trial.

The 2017 course was tailormade for Dumoulin, with two flat time trials. Indeed, it reminds me of the 2012 Tour de France. Dumoulin himself is quite a similar rider to the 2012 Tour winner Bradley Wiggins. A time trial specialist who could also hold their own on the high mountains.

And boy, did he! Even winning on a summit finish on Stage 14. Things almost fell apart in Stage 16, with some bizarre misfortune that forced him to take a dump in the middle of the race. A comfortable ~3 minute lead was now down to just 30 seconds to Quintana, with Nibali and Pinot also now hot on the tail. Dumoulin knew what he had to do - defend and limit damage on the mountains.

By the penultimate stage, thanks to Pinot's heroics, Dumoulin was down to 4th place, but only 53 seconds covered the top 4! Incredible.

Being the superior time trialist, he held his nerve, and easy overturned the 53 seconds deficit. Full credit to Quintana, Nibali, Pinot, Zakarin and even Pozzovivo for keeping it so close till the very end! A fantastic event.

By the way, Monza was a really interesting venue for the time trial - would love to see more cycling events at Formula 1 tracks. Speaking of Formula 1...

Monaco Grand Prix

There's no track like Monaco. It truly is the crown jewel of the Formula 1 season. It was fantastic to see Kimi on top in qualifying- first pole since 2008! As for the race, Ferrari was truly dominant. It was always going to be a matter of which Ferrari wins it. In the end, the overcut worked for Vettel, and he moved in front. There'll be talk of Kimi being screwed over by Ferrari, but I think it's probably just an unusual case of a too hard Pirelli tyre and the unique track of Monaco which makes an overcut a possibility. In every other track, the undercut works. Sadly, for Kimi, it didn't. Neither did it for Bottas and Verstappen, by the way. Along with Vettel, Hamilton and Ricciardo benefited greatly for the overcut.

Sad to see Jenson go out in such a miserable race, but glad to see Wehrlein is OK after that scary looking crash.

Indianapolis 500

I'll admit it, I wouldn't have watched it where it not for Fernando Alonso. Arguably, he's the most complete driver in the world, and he certainly proved it. Despite being a "rookie", he was in the hunt for the win throughout, leading many laps in the beginning and around the 100 laps mark.

Sadly, a familiar fate from Formula 1 - a Honda engine blowing up. At least in IndyCar, the Andretti Honda has the performance, in Formula 1 the McLaren Honda has neither performance nor reliability. It was not just him of course, Hunter-Reay was in a great position too, suffering a blowup.

It also reminded me why I'm not particularly interested in oval racing. Certainly very close throughout, but too many stoppages, too few variables. The aerodynamics starved Indy cars definitely allows for the kind of wheel-to-wheel racing we simply don't get with the state-of-the-art Formula 1 cars. Of course, we would like

Back to Indy 500, fantastic to see good 'ol Takuma-san take the win! Brilliant strategy, held his nerve to come through at the very end. Wonderful bloke that - miss him from the Formula 1 days. Well deserved!

(Images from Formula1.com, motorsport.com and Giroditalia.it)