Strong riding in the weekend's Alpine stages sealed the overall title in the Critérium du Dauphiné for Bradley Wiggins yesterday, earning the Team Sky leader the biggest road victory of his career and creating the perfect springboard to his attempt to finish in the top 10 of the Tour de France, which is 20 days away.

"It hasn't sunk in yet, I'm still in a bit of a daze but this is very special," said Wiggins. "I'm a big historian of the sport and I know the palmares [roll of honour] of this race, other guys who've won it. This is the biggest win of my career on the road. I've had a couple of tough days, concentrating on getting through every stage, but tomorrow I'll wake up and realise what it means."

The win marked a major step forward for the 31-year-old, who had only one professional stage race overall win to his name hitherto, in the Herald Sun Tour in Australia in 2009. The Dauphiné is in a different league: an eight-day stage race through the Alps that includes greats such as Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil on its roll of honour. The victory also marked new territory for Team Sky, who had never faced the job of defending the race lead in the decisive stages of an event of this stature and difficulty.

The triple Olympic gold medallist is only the third Briton to win this miniature version of the Tour de France. His predecessors are both names to be reckoned with. First was the Yorkshireman Brian Robinson, who won in 1961 and was also the first Great Britain cyclist to win a stage of the Tour. The other is Robert Millar, winner in 1990, and jointly the highest British finisher in the Tour, as Wiggins equalled his fourth place overall in 2009.

The Team Sky principal, Dave Brailsford, who also heads the Olympic cycling programme, paid tribute to both Wiggins and his coach, Shane Sutton, yesterday. "Brad was as cool as a cucumber but, if ever Sutton's name should be mentioned, it's now. He's done a great job since we sat down and talked it all through in November. He and [performance analyst] Tim Kerrison have formed a little team around Brad and it's paid off."

The Sky leader also benefited from a strong performance from Team Sky in defence of his lead. "We were solid here, no other team could attack us," said Brailsford. That was exemplified by the effort put in by his Norwegian team-mate Edvald Boasson-Hagen, who set such an intense pace for so long to discourage attacks on the climb to Saturday's finish at Le Collet d'Allevard. He came to a complete standstill after finishing his stint at the head of the peloton, having set out to make the pace for a mere 500 metres and ended up on the front for five kilometres.

Wiggins has changed his approach to the Tour de France this year, opting for high-altitude training camps rather than riding the Giro d'Italia as he did in 2009 and 2010. The switch looks to have paid off as he rode impeccably over the eight days, placing third in the prologue time trial and taking the yellow and blue leader's jersey thanks to second place to the German Tony Martin in Tuesday's longer time trial at Grenoble.

Critically, in the 42km contre la montre, Wiggins was able to open a substantial lead on all the other challengers for the overall title, who were led by the Australian Cadel Evans, twice a runner-up in the Tour de France. That margin proved too intimidating for the Australian and the Kazakh Alexandr Vinokourov, neither of whom was able to put Wiggins under serious pressure in the two mountain stages over the weekend.

"I tried to stay as relaxed as possible, go through the process, not get too stressed," said Wiggins. "Holding the yellow jersey you're there to be shot at but I didn't change the way I race. I was able to keep at my own tempo when riders like Vinokourov and Joaquim Rodríguez [winner of both the weekend's stages] attacked. I treated each climb like a long time trial because I'm not a pure climber. I never panicked – that was the process."