Red Bull have work to do: Van Gils critical of teammates after Tour de France TTT rehearsal

Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe will need to step up its game if it wants to put Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz in a strong position for the team time trial at the Tour de France in July. The German team finished fifth in the team time trial on Tuesday during Stage 3 of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, but according to Maxim Van Gils, there is still room for improvement.

A fifth-place finish, 40 seconds behind Visma | Lease a Bike. On paper, it wasn’t a disaster, but Red Bull will be looking for better results, especially since a 19-kilometer team time trial is scheduled for the first day of the Tour in Barcelona. Time trial phenom Evenepoel will already make a big difference, and Lipowitz is also a strong time trialist.

There was therefore no major disappointment following Tuesday’s team time trial at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, but Van Gils was still critical after the race. “To put it bluntly, I don’t think we rode a good time trial,” the Belgian told Sporza. “We made a lot of mistakes; that can’t happen in Barcelona.”

Van Gils, who still has a chance of making the Tour de France squad despite his hard crash in the Clasica Jaén in February, put a positive spin on things by pointing out the absence of Evenepoel and Lipowitz. As a result, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe fielded a lineup on Tuesday featuring Daniel Felipe Martínez, Finn Fisher-Black, Luke Tuckwell, Callum Thornley, Haimar Etxeberria, Gianni Vermeersch, and Van Gils.

"Right now, those little mistakes are still acceptable, without Remco and Florian. But if those two had been there after a month of altitude training, things like what happened today shouldn't have happened. I think the stress might have gotten to some of them. We made changes at the wrong times and in the wrong direction. In a team time trial, that costs a few seconds."

It is unclear whether Evenepoel watched his team in action on Tuesday. The Belgian is currently at a training camp in Spain, where he is accompanied by his wife Oumi and his parents. Evenepoel was spotted on Tuesday on the Coll de Rates, a very popular climb on the Costa Blanca. The Belgian will not be racing again until the Tour.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]