Part 2 of the Tour de France begins now — Lidl-Trek and Visma | Lease a Bike are ready to go

Until Stage 11, the Tour de France had seen no serious crashes, but things went wrong during the last opportunity for the true sprinters. The major general classification teams breathed a sigh of relief that they had made it through the first half of the Tour de France unscathed, as evidenced by comments from yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar, white jersey Juan Ayuso, and Visma | Lease a Bike team director Marc Reef.

After the race, Ayuso was invited to take part in a brief flash interview as the wearer of the white jersey. The Spaniard was in good spirits, partly because his teammate Mads Pedersen still holds the green jersey after five flat sprint stages. “We already discussed our tactics for the final stage over dinner yesterday.”

"The whole team stuck to the plan, but it didn't work out. Still, we put in a good performance as a team. Mads [Pedersen] needs a tough final stretch to have a chance in the sprint. The fact that I had to push hard doesn’t change that, because the rest of the general classification contenders had to do the same. Tomorrow marks the start of a new Tour, and we’re ready for it,” said Ayuso.

Visma | Lease a Bike was also pleased. “We managed to stay out of trouble. There was one crash, but fortunately we were behind it. Jonas finished strong, and that was the most important thing today,” said Reef.

"The forecast called for some wind after the final climb. Meanwhile, there were also a lot of attacks in the final stretch. Per (Strand Hagenes, ed.) was very attentive a few times and kept up well, while we kept Jonas in a good position behind him. In the end, the wind wasn’t as strong as expected, and we moved to the back of the peloton. There, we took up our positions just as we usually do in every sprint stage. Another good day for our team.”

Friday’s stage will take riders over the Ballon d’Alsace, followed by two stages on Saturday and Sunday with even more undulating terrain. Tadej Pogacar spoke briefly about those stages after the race. “Saturday’s stage? It’s a strange one. But anyway, we just have to get through it. I think the stages on Saturday and Sunday will be a lot more exciting,” said Pogacar, who has also scouted those stages.