'I was still quite far from the big guys' - Remco Evenepoel with work to do before Tour de France

At least Remco Evenepoel knows what he needs to work on. Much like last year, the Critérium du Dauphiné has served as a learning exercise for the Belgian as he builds towards his second appearance at the Tour de France.

Twelve months ago, Evenepoel was a subdued seventh at the Dauphiné, but he improved considerably by July to place third at his debut Tour. This time out, the Soudal-QuickStep man took fourth overall, but he knows the focus will be on the stark gulf between his current capabilities and those of Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.

Evenepoel soundly beat both men in the midweek time trial, but he was left trailing once the race hit the mountains, finishing the Dauphiné 4:21 down on Pogačar and more than three minutes behind Vingegaard.

In 2024, Evenepoel made enormous strides in his pre-Tour camp at Isola 2000. He will hope to make even greater progress this time around when he fine-tunes his Tour preparation at altitude at Tignes over the next two weeks.

“I think for sure I’ll be trying to work on tempo changes,” Evenepoel told reporters after the final stage. “When it’s already a high tempo and then they go four or five minutes all out, I think I need to get used to that. It’s something that’s not really in my nature, so I really have to work on that. I think my time trialling was on point this week, but I have to become even better in climbing because I was still quite far away from the two big guys. I hope I can come closer to them.”

Evenepoel lost 1:50 to Pogačar at Combloux on Friday and more than two minutes on Saturday’s finale at Valmeinier 1800. He fared far better on stage 8 to Plateau du Cenis, where he came home six seconds behind Pogačar and Vingegaard, but he acknowledged that their accelerations bring them to places he simply cannot reach.

“It seems like the hard pace from the domestiques is for them like a training pace, so sometimes it takes away the morale a little bit when you see them attacking when you’re already all out and quite on the limit,” said Evenepoel, who had been the first aggressor from the yellow jersey group on Mont Cenis on Sunday. When Vinegaard and Pogačar countered, however, he couldn’t follow.

“It was a bit of headwind, so they could take benefit, but still, the attack they put in was quite impressive. And that’s where I saw I was not at my best, I had to recover from my attack, so I just gave it my best shot. I have to work on becoming better in climbing.”

Evenepoel revealed that he had been troubled by allergies in the previous two mountain stages of the Dauphiné, though he felt his performances here were roughly in line with last year. The race again served as a very public training exercise.

“I’ve not been at my best for two days,” he said. “Today was better, so it seems to be like a copy-paste of last year, more or less. I’m happy with my feeling today. It wasn’t great, but it was better, so I’m happy with this last day.”

While Evenepoel will hope to improve considerably by the Grand Départ on July 5, there is no quick fix for the climbing strength of his Soudal-QuickStep squad. Mikel Landa has been ruled out of the Tour through injury, and Louis Vervaeke suffered a broken collarbone at the Dauphiné.

“It’s going to be an important two weeks to make decisions, but for sure Mikel will be very missed,” Evenepoel said. “I mean, he is my major domestique. He was top five at the Tour and top 10 at the Vuelta last year. He will be very missed on this Tour.”