Vingegaard Cracks on Hautacam in Tour de France: Visma Admits Pogačar 'In a Class of His Own'

Visma | Lease a Bike will have envisioned a different outcome for the twelfth stage of the Tour. The Dutch team took the initiative on the Col du Soulor, but on the final climb to Hautacam, leader Jonas Vingegaard lost more than two minutes to Tadej Pogacar. “Pogacar was clearly the strongest,” team director Grischa Niermann concluded afterwards in an interview with WielerFlits.

“Jonas felt good, but I think on the last climb he really started to crack,” continued the German, who still tried to coach Vingegaard after he was dropped. “I told him to do his own thing, to stick to his own plan. And that’s what he did. He still finished second. But Pogacar was clearly too strong.”

Had Niermann expected Pogacar to be this dominant? “Of course not. We hadn’t hoped to lose two minutes today, but this is how it is and we have to live with it,” he said. “We tried to make the race hard, but that already didn’t go well because Matteo suddenly had to drop off. Of course, we can’t read riders’ minds. We then let the pace slow down. We still kept the plan for Jonas to attack on the final climb. Only Pogacar turned out to be in a class of his own.”

Remaining competitive

Visma | Lease a Bike always wants to try, Niermann emphasizes. “We thought: today is a tough day, so we’re just going to give it a shot. But it wasn’t like we expected Pogacar to falter today because he crashed yesterday.”

“There was nothing more we could have done than what we did. Tomorrow we have a mountain time trial. Then we have to see what’s possible. But right now we’re facing a pretty big time deficit. We have to be honest about that. But there’s still a lot to come. We will definitely remain combative. But at this moment, the strongest man is in the yellow jersey.”