Pogacar’s time trial experiment failed, says Zonneveld: "He was all over the road"

The Dauphiné is just three weeks before the Tour de France. With a time trial in the course, that is extra important. "A time trial so close to the Tour is the final test," said Zonneveld in his podcast In de Waaier. "And I think almost all teams approach it that way. Here you test the new equipment, your tactics..."

It is, therefore, a hard blow for the Slovenian to lose so much time, especially to Vingegaard. Despite a less-than-perfect spring, the Visma | Lease a Bike leader had taken a comfortable lead in the GC. "Vingegaard hasn't raced for months, and Pogacar has been in great shape for months. But in the time trial, you can see that UAE just doesn't have it as well under control as Visma."

According to Zonneveld, a big difference between Pogacar and the past is his riding position. According to the technical director of BEAT Cycling, the Tour winner sits further to the front, and that causes problems. "You saw almost the entire time trial, especially in the descents, that he is quite unstable. If you sit very far forward, you automatically have less pressure on your rear wheel. There was a bump in the fast descent. He went over it and almost lost control of the bike. The entire rear wheel went left to right over the road. You will hit the ground at 90, 95 km/h if he doesn't keep it there."

UAE Team Emirates: XRG may have to return to the drawing board. "This is definitely going to cause stress and doubts. Then you start looking at that bike again," said the Dutchman, who also saw Pogacar spying on Visma | Lease a Bike after the time trial. "He's really checking out that bike: what do they have that we don't? How is that possible? I'm more explosive; I thought I had more absolute power."

Zonneveld isn't complaining, though. On the contrary, he sees the results of the Dauphiné time trial as the perfect build-up to the Tour. "That's the best thing for the excitement in the Tour. If it had been the other way around and Pogacar had beaten the other two, we would have had another gala performance. So this is the best scenario to go into the Tour, as far as the time trial is concerned."

Where the previous Tour was a battle between two riders, Evenepoel could perhaps get involved in the fight for the yellow jersey. "He's going to make up much time in those 33 kilometers in the Tour. Because he gains just over a second per kilometer on Vingegaard and 3 seconds per kilometer on Pogacar, that's a lot. If you project that to day 5 in the Tour, you're looking at 40 seconds ahead of Vingegaard and 1 minute 30 seconds ahead of Pogacar."