Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) neither won the time trial nor claimed the leader's jersey in the Critérium du Dauphiné on Wednesday, but after he limited the gaps on the main TT favourite and leapfrogged ahead of arch-rival Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) in the overall, his satisfaction was palpable.
In what was the first key GC test of his first race back since his abandon in Paris-Nice with concussion, nearly three months ago, Vingegaard was more than up to the challenge, shedding just 20 seconds to world time trial champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and gaining a hefty 28 seconds on Pogačar.
As the dress rehearsal for the Tour de France, context is king in the Dauphiné. So after all the skirmishing and muscle flexing by UAE and Visma in the opening three days of this year's race, for the Dane to finish ahead of the man responsible for last year's stinging defeat in July was just the result he needed to boost his morale going into the Dauphiné's mountains.
"I think to be honest, I can be pretty satisfied with how it went," Vingegaard told reporters afterwards.
"Remco is the best TTer in the world, so to only lose 20 seconds in this time trial is pretty decent. Then [as for] taking time on Tadej, in the end, I can be happy. "
Catching his minute man, fellow Dane Anders Foldager (Jayco AlUla), on the one short but viciously steep ascent of the race, was obviously a morale boost for Vingegaard, already 20 seconds ahead of Pogačar by the time check at km 10.
In the second half of the course, which was mostly downhill or flatter, Vingegaard said later he had had a minor issue with his bike. But despite that setback, he still managed to add another seven seconds to the total difference between himself and Pogačar by the finish in Saint-Péray.
"I didn't have a problem, I just ran a bit out of gear, so maybe I should have had a bigger chainring on the front," Vingegaard observed.
"I mean, I don't think it changed much, just on one of the very fast parts, I needed a little bit bigger gear. But it's not like it would have made even five seconds' difference."
Vingegaard's performance is, of course, nothing like the devastating time trial form that netted him the win in the Tour in 2023 at Combloux ahead of Pogačar, the last time he beat Pogačar in a direct duel against the clock. Since then, Vingegaard was beaten by the Slovenian both in the opening TT of the 2024 Tour – won by Evenepoel – and again in the final race against the clock in Nice.
This latest result, therefore, stands in sharp contrast to those two back-to-back TT defeats. Furthemore, as an indication that Vingegaard could, like Evenepoel, potentially gain time on the Slovenian in the first week TT of this year's Tour, the result in the Dauphiné time trial – which he also won overall in 2023 – could hardly be bettered.
"Of course, it's always better to be in front, but on other hand I'm also behind Remco, I also have some time to make up," Vingegaard, now 16 seconds behind Evenepoel on GC and 24 seconds ahead of Pogačar, concluded.
"But we've seen in the last years, in the mountains you can make up a lot of time, so it will be interesting to see what the outcome is in four days' time."
Thursday's stage is relatively flat, and could end in the 2025 Dauphiné's second all-out bunch sprint. But the GC challengers will soon be back in business, with Friday's very tough category-2 summit finish ascent to Combloux a seriously difficult challenge prior to the two main mountain stages of the weekend: those which, as Vingegaard says, will decide this year's Critérium du Dauphiné.
Subscribe to Cyclingnews and gear up for the Tour de France with unlimited access to our coverage of the Critérium du Dauphiné – including breaking news, analysis and more, reported by our journalists on the ground and across the globe. Find out more.
