Gallery: Wind tunnel testing with Alexander Kristoff

Image 1 of 7

Fresh from a successful spring capped by 11 victories, including the Tour of Flanders, Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) made a visit to the Drag2Zero facility at the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team wind tunnel in Northamptonshire, UK last week to improve his time trialling position.

Katusha has never won a time trial in his professional career but he showed his aptitude in the discipline when he placed third in the concluding 14.2km test at the Three Days of De Panne, which was enough to seal final overall victory.

"We had an extremely useful visit and will be looking at the data from the session with interest to help with Alexander's preparations for his next time trials," said Stein Oern, Kristoff's coach.

The next major time trial on Kristoff’s agenda comes on the opening day of the Tour de France in Utrecht, which – like in De Panne – is 14 kilometres in length. While the time trial has been billed by many as a battle between Tony Martin and local favourite Tom Dumoulin, Kristoff knows that a strong performance could put him within striking distance of the yellow jersey during the Tour’s opening week – provided that he limits his losses on the Mur de Huy on stage 3.

Alex Dowsett (Movistar) also recently made a visit to the Drag2Zero facility during the final phase of his preparation for his Hour Record attempt, which takes place in Manchester on Saturday.