'Nobody believed us when we said we target the podium' – Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe playing the Tour de France long game with Lipowitz and Roglič

After a quiet start to the race, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have burst into the narrative of this year's Tour de France, with Florian Lipowitz entering the second rest day third overall, and Primož Roglič sitting in sixth.

Whilst the team were cautious about naming a sole leader pre-race, they were clear that they aimed to finish on the podium with one of their riders, and though they weren't the most active team in the first week, their long-term plan is working.

"It felt like nobody would believe us when we said 'we target the podium, we target the podium', because everyone was like 'wait a minute, you're not really visible' but that was part of the plan, low risk-taking in the early stages," Red Bull sports director Rolf Aldag told Cyclingnews on Sunday.

"Obviously, you pay the price for pretty little in the stage results, but I think right now we are in the position where we wanted to be. But it's still a long way to Paris, so it's not like ticking the box and saying 'OK, we achieved that and now we can go home', there's still a week to go."

Attention will now turn to trying to preserve Lipowitz's place in third, with the Alps still to come, but the team is hoping the lack of stress in the first part of the race will pay off in the latter.

"It was really a lot about reducing the mental stress and the pressure for our guys. It's professional sport, we all measure against success and what we achieve on the road, but then still there's no need for us to say 'OK, every stage, every millimeter we fight for' because if you look at historical results, it's never about one or two seconds, it's always going to come down to minutes," Aldag said.

"Now we are a little bit in a different position, because we were kind of on a 'wait and see' thing, and now we are on the podium."

With that provisional podium spot, there is a fear that the pressure the team have been trying to keep out may start to creep in.

"Hopefully not," Aldag said when asked if there was a little bit of pressure brewing. "I think we just try to continue what we've done so far, and I do think the spirit of the riders is really, really good. That's very important, that you don't feel like they have a bunch of crap personalities sitting in the team bus. They joke, they're up for it, and they know it's still hard work, and they know their focus needs to be kept, otherwise it's dangerous around every corner."

However, Aldag is aware that the fight for the podium may become the biggest fight of all in this race, more so than the battle for yellow.

"Since Tadej and Jonas seem to be untouchable, it's all going to come down to that third place, and everyone is super strong," he said.

"Obviously, on home turf, we have a very motivated [Kévin] Vauquelin, there's [Tobias] Johannessen who is not shy on attacking, there's Ben Healy who searches for every breakaway group he can go in, there's [Oscar] Onley who is doing a really good job with his explosivity and everything, it's not easy to get rid of him. So we're in no state where we say like 'ah, we can lean back and relax and enjoy the ride to Paris'."

For Lipowitz, there is certainly a desire to hold onto that third place, but the young German is also not stressing about whether that doesn't pay off, given he is riding his first-ever Tour de France.

"I think we just need to focus on ourselves and the goal of the team, which is Primož or me being up there in the podium," he said on the rest day.

"I don't want to put too much pressure on myself. I just want to enjoy racing here, and that's also the goal I had when I came here. To be honest, I'm not really... Like, if I lose everything in the third week, I'm also not going to be worried about it.

"When I came here, I was never thinking about racing for the GC or being up there. But, I knew after Dauphiné that I'm in good shape, and if I can show the legs I had there in the Tour, I can do something really good. So for sure I'm super happy, but it's also a big surprise for me."

The Roglič factor

It may be Lipowitz who is on the podium, but Red Bull, in fact, have two riders in the top 10, with Primož Roglič sitting sixth. Though he's 10:34 down, it's not inconceivable that he could still climb up GC, given that such young riders are ahead of him.

More than any hopes of a good overall result, though, Roglič's strength is also helping Lipowitz, which is why the team didn't define one or the other as a leader.

"I do think that is the thing that plays in our favour. We always said from the beginning, in our press release in German, we said 'an der seite von [Roglič]' which means next to Primož, we never said domestique or helper or water carrier or something like that," Aldag said.

"And that's because you find a lot of strength, if somebody like Primož is around, if you look at him and make eye contact, and he can give you a little bit of a sense of what to do now, I think that's very helpful and very valuable. So we are more than happy, because Lipowitz, on his own, it would probably be much harder for him to deal with, to be so close to the top.

That was a feeling echoed by Lipowitz, who is counting on the Slovenian's support as he tackles the third week.

"I'm more the guy who tries to take something if I can, but I think Primož showed in the past years that he's always super strong in the third week, and he knows how to manage three weeks of racing, so I think we have quite good cards, but for sure it will be a big fight," he said.

A big fight it will certainly be, but there is also a lot of quiet confidence at Red Bull, who know their German secret weapon has been the only rider to even be close to following Pogačar and Vingegaard in the mountains so far, so they're not scared of being bold about their ambitions.

"Right now, I would say he's the third strongest rider. I would make that statement," Aldag said.

"I believe he's the third strongest rider, which we all know does not mean you end up in the third spot in Paris, there's a lot of kilometres still to be ridden, but we will get all the support and we still have the option of Primož, who is also not really far off, to say can we conttrol the race, can we turn it a little bit around and put pressure on others, because Primož likes also aggressive riding. We will see that. But the goal of the team stays unchanged, and that is getting on the final podium of the Tour de France.

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