Five days on from the tension that enveloped the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team bus at the Tour de France stage 6 finish, when Remco Evenepoel delivered searing criticism of his teammate Florian Lipowitz for not helping him, things could hardly have been more different at Le Lioran after stage 10.
The day’s win might have been as much out of reach for Red Bull on the tough trek through the Massif Central as it was for everybody else thanks to Tadej Pogačar, but Evenepoel’s second place and Lipowitz’ fourth at the finish nonetheless still constituted an excellent all-round performance.
Perhaps equally important for team spirit at Red Bull, the way Evenepoel and Lipowitz had worked together to secure the maximum possible for both riders on GC also spoke volumes about their now-renewed collaboration.
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Probably the key evidence of that improved teamwork between the two came when Lipowitz instantly sat on and began following wheels in the group of favourites chasing behind Pogačar when he realised that Evenepoel was struggling slightly on the Cat. 3 Col de Font de Cére.
In part, that lack of collaboration surely helped keep the distance between the Belgian and the chasers a little lower so Evenepoel could get back on more easily. But in terms of the bigger picture, too, it meant that Lipowitz had kept his teammate’s GC interests in mind even when he was struggling, proving that at the critical moment, rather than a repeat of the Tourmalet spat, come the next set of mountains, the collective goal had been the one that counted.
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“Florian, did you wait for Remco?” was one very loaded question asked by someone from Belgian media as Lipowitz warmed down outside the team bus. And then when the German answered, “In the end, I didn’t work in the group,” the same reporter instantly quipped back, “Yes, we saw that.”
“For me, there was nothing else to do but to hope he could come back, and he did, so we are happy,” Lipowitz added, further defusing any sense of tension.
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As for how the two teammates had worked together once Pogačar had attacked, the Red Bull co-leader explained, “We tried to close the gap on Pogačar; we still believed we could maybe race for the win, and then I noticed that Remco had a little gap.
“So I was behind Jonas, and I knew on the downhill for sure he would come back, and then we raced for second place, and I think we can be happy for that.”
Fourth, just behind Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) at 34 seconds, Lipowitz has moved up to sixth overall at 4:44 following Isaac del Toro’s difficult day, and he has also regained a small amount of time on rivals like Vingegaard and Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek).
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Overall, the gaps in the Massif Central stage were far smaller than two years ago when Vingegaard and Pogačar collectively ripped the race apart, but in terms of how this looks for the future, Lipowitz struck a decidedly optimistic note all the same.
“My legs were the best for the whole race so far, I think the rest day was quite good and for sure it’s been a good start to the second week. Now we have two sprints, one day for the breakaway and then we have another two GC days, so on the weekend we will have the next fight,” he reflected.
If Evenepoel and Lipowitz are singing from the same hymn sheet once again, that raises the possibility that they could combine forces to take on Pogačar, one reporter suggested. But rather than challenge the Slovenian, Lipowitz confirmed that, as almost everyone suspected, from here on, the battle to stand alongside the UAE leader in Paris is his most realistic priority.
“I think he [Pogačar] already has, like, four minutes” – [4:06 on GC on Evenepoel and 4:44 on Lipowitz – Ed.] – “so there’s not much to play for,” Lipowitz said. “But now it’s quite open for the second place, and if we work together for sure we can race for the second place here.”
“We always said the podium was our goal, we’ve seen that Tadej is completely out of reach right now, so that’s another story,” lead sports director Patxi Vila added. “But for the moment, the race is between the podium contenders. When we saw Isaac having a bit of a hard time, we tried to hammer it in the valley, and I think there was a good collaboration between everybody.
“In the end Jonas was also dropped a bit, too, so that was good for us. We are all fighting for the same spots on the podium, so it’s still open.”
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