Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe took a cautious approach with Roglic in opening stage Tour: "Deliberately avoided risks – same plan for stage 2"

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates-XRG) already have a 39-second lead over Roglic and Evenepoel after one day, but compared to brothers Adam and Simon Yates, who lost five and six minutes respectively, the damage in Lille was not too bad.

At Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, the mood on the bus was, therefore, moderately positive, although that is usually the attitude that sports director Rolf Aldag exudes. Along the way, Florian Lipowitz, the number two in the team rankings, suffered a flat tire at a critical moment, but he, too, managed to minimize the damage to 39 seconds.

“We were prepared for everything and know how complicated the first stages in Grand Tours can be,” said Aldag. “Primoz finished ahead of some of his rivals for the podium in this Tour. We deliberately avoided taking any risks in this stage, and we won't do so on Sunday either, even though it will be more challenging and technical. We managed to limit the damage.”

“If our Tour had ended here with a stupid crash, we would have seen eight weeks of preparation go down the drain,” said the German. “I expect even more complex situations in stages 2 and 4, so we'll have to step up our game. At the moment, I'm just happy that we got through the first stage safely, although it's a shame we couldn't sprint with Jordi Meeus.”

Tom Steels spoke on behalf of Soudal Quick-Step, which saw both the Merlier plan (stage victory) and part of the Evenepoel plan (GC and possibly also a chance for yellow after the time trial) come to an end. “We rode a good race until the last 25 kilometers. We lost a bit of concentration there, which shouldn't have happened, but it did.”

"It's not PlayStation, and in the Tour, you get punished for that, although I do think that many riders were already quite tired," the Belgian continued. "Forty riders broke away, and we were too far behind. We'll go all out again in stage two, which will definitely boost our focus. We just have to keep going."

“There are still 20 days to go. It's a pity, but the race is far from over,” said Steels. “We're not necessarily going to race differently. Sunday will be another hectic stage.”