'Everyone does their own thing' - Why Bahrain chased the break on the Tour's longest day

The explanation was straightforward. Lenny Martinez began the day in ninth place overall, but his position was in imminent danger due to the presence of Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) in the move.

Pidcock was some 11:49 off Tadej Pogačar’s yellow jersey, which meant that UAE Team Emirates-XRG had little motivation to chase. The Briton was just over five minutes down on Martinez, however, and his proximity persuaded sports director Enrico Gasparotto to set his team to work at the head of the bunch on what was the longest stage of the 2026 Tour at 205km.

At one point, the break’s lead yawned out to such a degree that Pidcock had moved up to second place in the virtual classification. The peloton would pare away some of that advantage over the Ballon d’Alsace, rolling in 7:32 down on stage winner Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) and the break.

“Pidcock is a very good rider, he was on the podium of a Grand Tour last year at the Vuelta, so our concern was not to give him too much time, not to give him 12 or 13 minutes,” Gasparotto told reporters afterwards.

“In the end, that wouldn’t have changed anything for UAE, obviously, but after we started chasing, then Bora and Trek came and helped, more or less everyone came. In situations like that, it’s best to have a bit of an agreement and collaboration. If you do it that way, you probably benefit more than if everybody is doing their own thing.”

Despite the category 1 ascent of the Ballon d’Alsace, the stage was run off at an average speed of almost 50km/h. Even though the break was ultimately handed considerable leeway, it was another demanding day in a Tour where there has been precious little respite since the start in Barcelona.

“There were 57 riders up the road before the final climb, but we also knew that out of that 57, there would only be a few left in front,” Gasparotto said. “But as ever in the Tour de France, everybody rides their own race and protects their own interests.”

Pidcock finished the day by moving up to fourth place overall, 4:15 behind Pogačar, while Martinez has now dropped to 10th, 2:19 behind the Briton. Gasparotto, however, declared himself pleased with the operation, citing the tightness of the GC behind the unassailable Pogačar. Just under three minutes separate Jonas Vingegaard’s second place from Martinez’s 10th, and the Frenchman is still 2:28 off Remco Evenepoel in third.

“In the end, everyone is within two and a half minutes,” Gasparotto said. “That’s exactly what we wanted.”

Before the start of Friday’s stage, Martinez had indicated that a place in top ten overall had superseded the king of the mountains title as his overarching target for the Tour due to Pogačar’s supremacy on the climbs.

“If Tadej is going to be too dominant for the king of the mountains, we’ll try to change strategy,” he said. His team’s actions on the road to Belfort seemed to confirm as much.