Vingegaard happy to be back in red, but Jorgenson explains Visma’s weaker middle section: "We misjudged the wind"

Vingegaard was happy with the overall result, but admitted there was something that stuck with him. “I think we did really well, but honestly, we were a bit slower than some other teams in the middle section,” he said in his flash interview. “Maybe we could’ve gone faster there. That’s something we’ll need to look at. But like I said, everyone was very strong today. We can be proud of that.”

David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) lost significant time and with it, the red jersey. That handed the overall lead back to Vingegaard, who was pleased to reclaim it. “I’m really happy to have the red jersey again. It’s such a beautiful jersey. I lost it yesterday, but every day you get to wear red is a good day.” Thursday’s stage heads to Andorra, where the first real mountain test awaits. With that, the pressure from UAE Team Emirates is ramping up. “Tomorrow is the first truly tough day. We need to be ready for the battle.”

Matteo Jorgenson gave more insight into where things went wrong for Visma. “I think we misjudged the wind a little bit during our recon. We thought we’d have a tailwind at the start, so we held back a little early on,” the American explained. But we always plan to be a little faster in the second half, and if we were quicker there, that would make sense with the tailwind. We came back a bit, but it was not enough for the win.”

Quite a mistake, one could say. “It wasn’t really a mistake, but we came here to win,” said Jorgenson, who plays a key support role for Vingegaard. “We didn’t manage that today. Of course, those 7 seconds (it was 8, ed.) probably won’t be what decides the race in Madrid. But we need to analyze today and understand why we didn’t win.”

Jorgenson now sits seventh overall in the general classification, about 16 seconds behind his team leader. The 26-year-old climber didn’t quite deliver on GC expectations at the Tour de France, but the Vuelta could be a different story. And the legs seem to be there. “I was able to push hard, and it felt fast,” he said. “There are still a few things we need to work on, but personally, it felt really good.”