He could have fooled everyone but Jonas Vingegaard claims he's not on his Tour de France form after riding every rival off his wheel on the Vuelta a España stage 13 atop the Col du Tourmalet.
The two-time Tour winner had a tactical advantage with race leader Sepp Kuss and three-time Vuelta winner Primož Roglič as teammates in the leading group on the Pyrenean ascent, and took advantage of the opportunity to climb up the standings from seventh to third with a long-range solo move.
However, the time gained on the others was limited to 30-40 seconds, with Kuss jumping away in the last kilometre and Roglič following suit in the last few hundred metres. The gap was far from the minutes Vingegaard gained on Tadej Pogačar on the stage to Courchevel in the Tour but bodes well for the final half of the Vuelta.
"I think I'm in good shape - I am not on my Tour de France level. I know that. I don't know how much from zero to 100 maybe between 90 and 95 (%)," Vingegaard said.
After driving the pace and jettisoning Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Jumbo-Visma hardly needed tactics to sweep the stage and GC as, one by one, they leapt away from the remaining contenders.
"Our plan today was to see if we could go for the stage. I had to be the first one attacking I did and for me, it paid off today. Obviously, we are super, super happy to be one, two, three in the stage but also in the in the GC. It's pretty amazing."
The only question now remains is who will Jumbo-Visma back for the final overall classification?
"I'm not fighting my teammates. We're here to win the Vuelta a España and it looks very, very promising for us... there's also a lot of other guys who are super, super strong. So it'll be interesting to see how we do in the next days."
Saturday's stage 14 continues in the high mountains with two viciously steep hors categorie climbs - the Col Hourcére at kilometre 65.2 - an 11.1km climb averaging 8.7% and the 14.9km - and the Puerto de Larrau, technically averaging 8% but with gradients well into the double digits throughout. The final ascent of the Puerto de Belagua is slightly less brutal at 6.3% with fewer stretches over 10%, making the 156km stage especially brutal.
Vingegaard hinted that things are by no means decided in the Vuelta.
"First of all, we're only 13 stages into the Vuelta so there's still a lot to come - it's not a PlayStation like you can just decide now this guy goes. We all have to be there and we can all have a bad day. I mean we're happy as long as we win the Vuelta a Espana."
