'I was angry and rightly so' - Tension at Red Bull as Evenepoel hits out at Lipowitz

Both Evenepoel and co-leader Florian Lipowitz were immediately distanced when Pogacar attacked a little under 5km from the summit of the Col du Tourmalet, and they scrambled to limit their losses on the upper portion of the climb.

Lipowitz crested the summit in a group 1:27 down on Pogacar, while Evenepoel was a further 20 seconds down the road. Their groups merged on the rapid descent, but they could make no inroads into Pogacar’s advantage on the shallow climb towards the finish, and they reached Gavarnie-Gèdre 2:57 down on the day’s winner and 19 seconds behind Jonas Vingegaard (Visma).

Evenepoel was outsprinted to third place by Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG companion Isaac del Toro, and his frustration was palpable on crossing the line. Speaking to Sporza afterwards, Evenepoel expressed annoyance that Lipowitz had not provided him with a lead-out for the sprint. 

“I asked for a lead-out and didn’t get one,” Evenepoel said. “Yes, I was angry, and rightly so. In the Volta a Catalunya, I led the way for him for 30 kilometres. I asked to lead for one kilometre, but that didn’t happen. That made me angry, and we’ll need to have a proper discussion about it this evening.

Evenepoel left Soudal Quick-Step for Red Bull last winter with the aim of improving on his third-place finish at the 2024 Tour. The move put him in the same team as Lipowitz, third in Paris in 2025, and Red Bull has opted to deploy both riders as co-leaders for this year's race.

Twelve months ago, Evenepoel abandoned the Tour on the slopes of the Tourmalet, and he was altogether more satisfied with his showing here, despite the heavy time loss to Pogacar. The Belgian is now fourth overall, 3:30 down on Pogacar in yellow and three seconds off Del Toro in third. Lipowitz is 30 seconds behind Evenepoel in seventh overall.

“It was quite alright. I did what I could,” Evenepoel said of the Tourmalet. “In any case, I wasn’t planning on pushing myself too hard at the end of the Tourmalet, as there was still a long descent ahead. UAE went extremely fast. We were already riding quite fast ourselves, but they were going extremely fast.”

Evenepoel scrambled down the other side of the Tourmalet to bridge up to Lipowitz, Del Toro and Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) in the company of Juan Ayuso, Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and Sepp Kuss (Visma).

“I knew that with my descending skills I’d still be able to get back to the group ahead of me,” he said. “The plan was to go all out, taking calculated risks. But my tactic in the end was not to go completely over the limit on the climb and then to go fast on the descent.”

Evenepoel expressed disappointment that the group didn’t collaborate sufficiently to catch Vingegaard, who had been almost a minute ahead of him atop the Tourmalet.

“I understand why Del Toro and Sepp Kuss weren’t chasing, but Lidl-Trek had two riders there and they didn’t want to take the lead straight away. I thought: what have you got to lose? If we work together, we might catch up with Jonas,” Evenepoel said.