Simon Yates claimed his first career Tour de France victory on stage 12 from Toulouse to Bagneres-de-Bigorre.

The Mitchelton-Scott rider held off Gregor Muhlberger and Pello Bilbao in a sprint after the trio got away from their fellow escapees on the climb of the Hourquette d'Ancizan with a little over 30km remaining of the 209.5km stage.

Simon, the 2018 Vuelta a Espana winner, is riding the Tour to help his twin brother Adam's general classification ambitions, but having lost over an hour in the overall during the first 10 stages he took his opportunity to go after some individual glory.

"I've been saving energy until we got here in the mountains and this was the first chance to try something," he said. "Normally I would be back helping Adam but had my own chance and grabbed it with both hands.

"I wasn't very confident of beating either of them as I didn't know how fast they are. But my director said I had to be in front coming round the last corner so I made sure I did that and thankfully held on to win.

"I'm very proud of winning stages in all three Grand Tours and hopefully there are more to come.

"We'll see if there are more chances this Tour – my main priority is to help Adam. I just had the chance to get up the road today. I'll see how I am in the next few days.

"We're having a fantastic Tour and long may it continue."

Simon did much to drive the final selection on the Hourquette, the second of two category one climbs on the Tour's second mountain stage, as what had been a 40-man breakaway splintered into several pieces.

Bora-Hansgrohe's Muhlberger was able to follow the Mitchelton-Scott man over the summit with Astana's Bilbao not far behind, and the trio raced down the long descent into town together.

The Lancastrian looked perhaps the least likely of the three to win in a sprint given his slight frame, but he used some of his old track racing nous to attack on the way into a corner with 200 metres to go and got the power down on the final straight.

News of Simon's win brought a broad smile to the face of Adam before the peloton came into town almost 10 minutes later.

All eyes had been on Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck-Quick Step to see if he could hold the wheels of the main contenders over the Peyresourde and the Hourquette and keep the yellow jersey for another day, and he was able to do just that.

However defending champion Geraint Thomas, second in the general classification, will hope to take a chunk out of his 72-second deficit in Friday's 27km time trial in Pau.