Remco Evenepoel the benchmark in pre-Tour de France time trial test - Critérium du Dauphiné stage 4 preview

It’s not a like-for-like practice run for the time trials of the Tour de France, but it’s a chance to lay down a marker all the same. Remco Evenepoel is the third man in the endless duel between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, but Wednesday’s stage 4 time trial at the Critérium du Dauphiné allows him a chance to steal a march ahead of the high mountains.

Evenepoel never wants for motivation in a time trial, of course, but he has ample reason to shine in Wednesday’s 17.4km test from Charmes-sur-Rhône to Saint-Péray. It’s only his third chance this season to don his rainbow skinsuit and it’s also a prime opportunity to score what might be the 1,000th victory in the history of his Soudal-QuickStep team, even if the precise count is still the matter of some debate.

“I hadn't kept track of that until Tim Merlier claimed the 999th,” Evenepoel told Sporza on Tuesday. “I have a great chance to get it tomorrow. It's a nice number to round off. It would be nice to achieve that, especially to honour the past of Patrick Lefevere's team.”

The present and future will also be on Evenepoel’s mind in Wednesday’s time trial, even if his 1:17 deficit to overall leader Iván Romeo (Movistar) means that winning the stage might not be enough to take the yellow jersey like he did on the corresponding stage a year ago. 

“We'll see,” Evenepoel said on Tuesday evening, when he also echoed Pogacar's dismay that Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-Alula) and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) had been allowed to gain so much ground in the break on stage 3. “I thought that was a strange decision by the GC riders. It would have been better if the gap had been a little smaller, but in the end we’ll have to make do with it." 

In any case, Evenepoel played down the likely impact on the final outcome of this Dauphiné, given that the test is barely half the distance of last year’s 34km time trial “I think it’s not super important for GC because it’s not a super long time trial,” Evenpoel said. “Last year, it was a better time trial for the GC, so this year is more going to be a good fight for the stage win, because with the mountain stage on Saturday, a few seconds is not really going to make the difference. For us, it’s going to be more important to try to win it.”

Evenepoel is the outstanding favourite for stage honours, and his performance relative to Pogacar and Vingegaard will be the story of the day, even if it will be fascinating to see how some others perform too. Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) will look to gauge his own progress against the watch, for instance, while Lipowitz will look to consolidate some of the GC gains he made as part of Tuesday's break.

In the longer term, the time trial is a useful work-out ahead of the Tour, though not of the kind the Dauphiné used to offer its participants in generations past. Back in 2011, for instance, the Dauphiné took its status as a dress rehearsal for July to extremes when the race included the very same 42.5km time trial route around Grenoble that would feature on the final weekend of that year's Tour de France. The knowledge gleaned in his June work-out certainly served Cadel Evans well the following month.

This time out, the Dauphiné’s lone time trial isn’t a close match for either of the two tests in July. The Tour’s mountain time trial to Peyragudes, as Evenepoel pointed out, isn’t really the same discipline. “I don’t consider it as an extra TT but as an extra mountain stage,” he said at the weekend. But he also indicated that this Dauphiné time trial offers only limited intel ahead of the Tour’s flat 34km test around Caen on stage 5.

“The Caen TT is longer and totally flat, with no altitude gain,” Evenepoel said. “This is completely different – there’s 6km flat, then a bit of a climb for 2.5km, which is quite steep at 9%, and then there are false flats. It’s a very explosive TT and quite short too, so 20-21 minutes of effort, max.”

“Every time trial that I start, I try to win it. It’s a pretty nice course, not technical at all actually. It’s pretty much always straight, except for two corners and then the corner to the finish. It’s something that suits me – fast start, hard middle part and fast finish. I think I just have to go all in with a good pacing strategy on the climb and then hope for the best.”

Yet despite the caveats about the relevance of Wednesday’s time trial to the main event in July, the 17.4km stage should offer some pointers for Pogacar, Vingeaard and Evenepoel ahead of the Tour. Above all, taking Evenepoel, the world and Olympic champion, as the benchmark, it will offer some real clues about Pogacar and Vingegaard’s potential against the watch this season. 

Evenepoel’s head-to-head record against both men in time trials in imposing. He has faced Pogacar in seven time trials during his career and finished in front of the Slovenian in six of them. The exception was the mountainous final time trial at last year’s Tour, but of greater relevance here will be their displays in the flat time trial in week one, when Evenepoel gained 0.48 seconds per kilometre over Pogacar.

Evenepoel has beaten Vingegaard in seven of their eight time trial encounters. Again, the outlier was the final time trial of last year’s Tour, but in the stage 7 test to Gevrey-Chambertin, Evenpoel gained 1.47 seconds per kilometres on the Dane.

Vingegaard, in particular, will hope – and perhaps expect – to improve on that metric here. Whatever the result on Wednesday, and whoever moves into yellow, the information gleaned on the road to Saint-Péray will serve a purpose in July. Every effort counts, especially at the Dauphiné.