Brentford manager Thomas Frank says he is ‘irritated’ with his side’s performance despite a 96th minute winner from Bryan Mbuemo helping his side claim a 4-3 win over struggling Ipswich.

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Christopher Bell is the only Cup driver to make the Championship 4 in the first two seasons of the Next Gen era, and he is on the cusp of doing it for a third consecutive year. Despite his strong position, he only felt frustration after a dominant showing last weekend as he watched Joey Logano stretch the fuel and steal the win out from under him.

But the disappointing runner-up finish at Vegas still netted Bell a bucket of points — enough to put him ahead of the seven title contenders still fighting over the three remaining spots in the final four. That’s critically important as no matter what happens over the next two weeks, the driver with the most points (and no win in the Round of 8) will also have a clear pathway to Phoenix.

Bell’s true battle isn’t with the bottom four

He is 42 points above the cut-line, but the fight Bell really needs to pay attention to is the one to remain atop the points pile. Kyle Larson is just seven points behind him and William Byron is 25 points back. The top points-scorer is guaranteed one of those coveted four spots, no matter what. That fact certainly isn’t lost on the quietly clever driver of the No. 20 Toyota.

“Yeah, I think that’s what we’re planning on (gaining max points),” said Bell during media availability at Homestead. “You know, that’s why you’re in the Round of 8, trying to transfer to the Championship 4. You’re never really safe. The three of us William [Byron], Kyle [Larson] and myself have kind of, the way that the cards fell, we’re kind of essentially point racing each other, and the guys below that are far enough below, they’re basically out of the points and essentially racing for wins.

“Certainly, we’ll know more once we get through Homestead on Sunday night, but, right now, we’re planning on there being three winners and the three of us – William, Kyle and myself – are racing for that last points spot. There’s a good chance William, Kyle or myself could win this weekend and it could change. But + 42 (points) sounds great until you realize every time someone wins, that cutline shrinks more, more and more, or that gap to the cutline. You’re never safe and it’s going to be a battle.”

The lack of a safety net in this round makes it unique to the two that precede it where ‘okay’ runs are normally enough to skate through. But in this penultimate round, the entire dynamic changes and nothing short of a victory feels secure. Perhaps that’s why Bell was unusually animated on the radio when he lost the Vegas race to Logano’s fuel gamble.

Points vs. wins: A recent history

But is it really wise to prioritize points over race wins in this round? Taking a short walk back through recent history gives us some good insight into the answer.

Last year, Byron (+20 over nearest competition) was the driver who left Homestead with the most points of the non-winners. In 2022, it was Ross Chastain (+8 on nearest competition). Both drivers did end up making the Championship 4. However, it was a nail-biter for Byron who narrowly moved forward by a margin of just eight points. And Chastain? I think we all remember what he had to do, driving his car full-throttle into the wall and achieving what was once thought impossible in a daredevil move for the ages.

But the most interesting statistic here is that neither of those drivers went on to win the title while both of the NASCAR’s most recent champions [Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano] won their way into the finale. In fact, that trend continues back before the introduction of the Next Gen car with Larson in 2021 and Chase Elliott in 2020.

The last champion to actually point their way into the finale was Kyle Busch five years ago. In fact, it’s only happened three times in ten seasons with this current format. Bell is of the belief that winning in the Round of 8 — specifically the opening race as Logano just did — gives any driver a certain edge over the other contenders. 

“The Phoenix car is a special car and if you’re in the final four, it deserves to have more time and effort put into it,” explained Bell, who has only ever made the final four by winning Ro8 races. “So, winning that first race is huge and yeah, it’s an advantage. And I noticed that from winning Homestead last year, having that extra week to prepare.”

CRISTIANO RONALDO could protest being snubbed by Ballon d’Or chiefs by refusing to attend Monday’s ceremony.

The Portuguese legend, 39, is a five-time winner of the prestigious award – claiming the honour in 2008, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017.

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But in 2023 he failed to make the 30-player shortlist for the first time in 20 years.

And the Al-Nassr forward also missed out this time around – making it the first time in more than decades that neither Ronaldo or Lionel Messi were among the nominations.

Ronaldo has still received an invite to the ceremony in Paris on Monday as all previous winners are permitted to attend.

However, France Football editor Vincent Garcia has hinted Ronaldo may opt to stay at home.

Speaking to The Times, he said: “Winners have the right to come back to all future ceremonies but they don’t all come, some are very upset with us.

“I don’t know for certain Cristiano is. I don’t talk to him directly, but I know for example that former winners vote for the Kopa Trophy – for the best young player – and Cristiano didn’t vote last year and he didn’t vote this year.”

Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior is the favourite to win this year’s Ballon d’Or ahead of Manchester City midfielder Rodri.

The Brazilian scored 24 goals and assisted 11 last season as Carlo Ancelotti’s men lifted the LaLiga title and Champions League.

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He also already has 15 goal contributions in as many games for Real Madrid this season.

Vinicius would become just the third player outside of Messi and Ronaldo to win the award since 2008.

Luka Modric won it in 2018, while Karim Benzema picked it up in 2022.

ABU DHABI – The old adage about three sides to every divorce – each side, plus the truth – no doubt comes in to play in MMA on the regular.

That likely is the case in the ongoing war of words between former UFC heavyweight champion and current PFL heavyweight superfights champ Francis Ngannou and his ex-promoter, UFC CEO Dana White, who Saturday brought his latest salvo when he told MMA Junkie he has a personal dislike for Ngannou that goes back years, prior to when he became the UFC heavyweight champion.

But recency bias and revisionist history also seem to come into play in MMA on the regular, and though he touted Ngannou as the proverbial “baddest man on the planet” while he was his heavyweight titleholder – and even famously said Jon Jones should reconsider moving to heavyweight, where Ngannou would be waiting, and should drop to middleweight, instead – White now says Ngannou ran from Jones, and then White got what he wanted, which was Ngannou out of the company.

“(Ngannou) didn’t want that fight (with Jones),” White told MMA Junkie after UFC 308 on Saturday in Abu Dhabi. “He could have stayed and took that fight. He didn’t want that fight. Tom Aspinall deserves that fight.”

Former light heavyweight champion Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC), who won the vacant belt against Ciryl Gane after Ngannou left the UFC for the PFL, is set to fight former champ Stipe Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC) in three weeks in the UFC 309 main event at Madison Square Garden. Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) currently holds the interim heavyweight title and presumably will fight the Jones-Miocic winner.

Ngannou (17-3) maintains he left in a contract dispute, and this past week said he suspects White has been hoping for him to fail outside the UFC. Since he left, Ngannou lost two boxing matches to Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, then made his PFL debut with a quick first-round finish of 2023 champ Renan Ferreira in the PFL: Battle of the Giants pay-per-view headliner eight days ago in Saudi Arabia.

Instead, White pointed to Ngannou’s fight against Derrick Lewis at UFC 226, one fight after he lost a title shot to Miocic in January 2018. That bout, which Lewis won by decision, has been widely panned as one of the worst heavyweight fights in the promotion’s history – at least relative to the expectations on paper going into it.

“When have you ever heard a story in all the years (about us owing a fighter money)? We’ve been a business, even when it was upside down, where we owed somebody money – never happened. So he’s full of sh*t there. Then (he says) I lost? I didn’t lose anything. I was done with Francis after the – he actually owes me money, because we had to watch that fight with him and the ‘Black Beast.’ He should actually pay me back for that fight, and all of you. And me praying for (him to fail) – trust me: I don’t think about Francis that much.

“You guys asked me the question about the PFL (last week), and I responded. Other than that, the only one who’s praying for his demise is probably the PFL, because they signed a sh*tty contract with a guy that doesn’t deliver any numbers and ticket sales or pay-per-views, and they’ve got to keep paying this guy for however long. Good for him – not good for them.”

In recent months, White has maintained a stance that Jones is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, despite the fact he has fought just twice in the past five years. But he said in spite of that, his personal thoughts on Ngannou go back a lot farther than his contract dispute.

White implied that in his opinion, the quality of Ngannou’s character was not in line with the kind of fighter he wants to have part of the promotion, but did not explicitly detail reasons why.

“Let me tell you what: There were two guys here. I wanted to cut him. Some day, I’ll tell you the story,” White said. “I was all about Francis in the beginning, and then I found out who Francis was. I told the two guys who asked me not to cut Francis, ‘When somebody shows you who they are, believe them.’ Believe me: I have no sleepless nights over Francis leaving.

“I didn’t like Francis as a person – wasn’t a guy I wanted to do business with. I didn’t like Francis. My boys were telling me he’s misunderstood, and I told them when somebody shows you who they are, believe them. It wasn’t about him becoming the heavyweight champion of the world. Francis isn’t a good guy. He plays the good guy – ‘I don’t understand the (English) language’ – so he seems like he’s a nice guy. He’s not. He’s just not a guy that I wanted to be in business with, period, end of story, whether he became the champion or not.”

As for the chances of White figuring out a way to have Jones and Ngannou fight each other, don’t count on it as long as Jones is in the UFC and White calls the shots.

Although the MMA world at large only really heard rumblings of a soured White-Ngannou working relationship in the months leading up to his departure from the UFC, White told MMA Junkie the bad vibes go back at least around seven years.

“We’ll never be in business together (again). I mean, you can tell: We don’t like each other,” White said. “And this goes way back. This goes back to before the first Stipe fight (at UFC 220 in Jaunary 2018). He pulled some sh*t before the first Stipe fight, and I said, ‘I’m done with this guy.’ And then Stipe beat the sh*t out of him – great night – and we never had a relationship after that.”

After his loss to Miocic, Ngannou lost to Lewis in mid-2018. White was publicly critical of him during the period of those two losses and said his ego got the best of him.

Later that year, Ngannou knocked out Curtis Blaydes in 45 seconds and won a bonus. He put away former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez in 26 seconds. He stopped former champ Junior dos Santos in 71 seconds. He knocked out Jairzinho Rozenstruik in 20 seconds to get a title shot with Miocic.

After he finished Miocic in the second round, he defended his title against Gane in Jaunary 2022, then left the promotion after his contract was up.

Ngannou’s backstory of his rise from poverty in Africa to to homeless on the streets of Paris before he discovered MMA is a famous part of MMA lore. In April, the 38-year-old suffered the tragic death of his 15-month-old son Kobe.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 308.

Draper has long been seen as the future of British men’s tennis, and now he is very much the player setting the standard.

Improvements this year have resulted in him becoming only the fourth player from the nation since 2009 – after Andy Murray, Cameron Norrie and Dan Evans – to win an ATP 500 title.

Taking time away from his opponents with a high first-serve percentage has been a feature of Draper’s run in the Austrian capital.

This weapon continued to be effective in a dominant first set against Khachanov.

Draper took the initiative early with a break of serve in the third game, continually asking questions with his consistent returning and drawing Khachanov into a series of mistakes from the baseline.

His confidence was clear as he secured the opening set having won 18 of his 18 first-serve points.

“I felt I was playing against PlayStation at the beginning – I had no chance,” said Khachanov.

Draper had lost just five of his 34 matches this year when he had won the first set.

He quickly asserted himself in the second set to ensure that formidable record would be bolstered.

A rattled-looking Khachanov produced a double fault to hand over another break in the first game of the second set, which Draper took with a brilliant drop shot after patiently picking his moment.

Another break to love for Draper was followed by a hold to love for 4-0.

Then he started to find fewer first serves and made more unforced errors to give hope to Khachanov.

After the former world number eight clawed one break back, the strain on Draper started to show.

His first double fault of the match indicated tightness and handed over a second break point at 4-3 for Khachanov, who then held to move 5-4 ahead.

But an extraordinary finish saw Draper dig deep and recover the advantage that his level over the match deserved.

“I didn’t feel I was too nervous or too tight, just a couple of wrong decisions and Karen started swinging and upping his level,” said Draper.

“I stayed solid and mentally in a good frame and came through. It is a relief.”

Max Holloway might have fought his last fight at 145 pounds.

The former featherweight champion had a chance to regain that title Saturday in the UFC 308 main event, but he instead suffered the first knockout loss of his storied career as he was defeated in the third round by Ilia Topuria.

Only two featherweights have scored wins over Holloway in the past decade, Topuria and Alexander Volkanovski, and Volkanovski was unable to finish Holloway despite the two battling for 75 minutes across three title fights. “Blessed” gave his take on the surprising finish at the evening’s post-fight press conference.

“I felt great,” Holloway said. “I was finding my groove. Saw it on the scoreboards after, I was kind of surprised, I thought I had at least one of them. The first round I know he took me down and at the end he had that takedown so, it is what it is, I felt good. Showing off my hands, I was landing, I was being fast, I think I had him surprised in there. Like I said, I was doing good until I wasn’t.”

“The first couple of rounds he landed a couple of left hooks,” Holloway added. “He took me down, he didn’t feel too strong, and you know, game of inches. Game of inches. He landed something that I found myself looking up from the ground.”

One thing Holloway wouldn’t do is blame the loss on a cut down to featherweight after competing at 155 pounds in his most recent bout. Holloway fought at lightweight in his most recent fight at UFC 300 this past April, when he won the “BMF” title in highlight-reel fashion after capping off a dominant performance against Justin Gaethje with a last-second knockout.

Even with the 145-pound weight cut still being manageable, Holloway thinks a return to lightweight could make sense going forward.

“I had the best ‘45 cut here, but what else is there to do?” Holloway said. “I had a couple of times to reclaim [the featherweight title], new guys coming up, that would be fun, but I think ‘55 looks more fun as fighting just more the caliber, everyone there and the names there, it would look really exciting to put my name in the mix.”

Holloway didn’t say who he’d like to fight at lightweight (when a third fight with Dustin Poirier was suggested, Holloway joked that he’d like to get one back but hasn’t had much luck against opponents who have already beaten him twice), but there are plenty of fan-friendly matchups that make sense for the 32-year-old veteran.

Whatever weight Holloway shows up at next, he doesn’t expect to fight again until mid-2025.

“We’ll sit down with the team, relax, there’s nothing needed to be rushing back right now,” Holloway said. “Probably try to come back summer, big July card in Vegas, do something, see what happens. [The 155-pound division] looks really good right now.”