'We really didn't expect to take yellow' – Remco Evenepoel surprised by margin of victory in Critérium du Dauphiné time trial

Remco Evenepoel said that he and his Soudal-QuickStep team "didn't expect to take yellow" in the Critérium du Dauphiné stage 4 time trial after he blitzed the course to win the stage and move into the race lead.

The world time trial champion beat Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike) into second place by 21 seconds over the 17.4km course, while Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) shed 49 seconds to finish in fourth.

Evenepoel shot up 12 places on GC as a result of his 50kph ride, moving into yellow ahead of Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) by four seconds. Vingegaard lies in fifth overall, 16 seconds down, while Pogačar is in eighth overall at 38 seconds.

Iván Romeo (Movistar), the race leader after stage 3, lost 1:25 on Evenepoel and dropped to third at nine seconds.

"Actually not," he said, when asked by CyclingPro if he had expected the result. "I think that means I really did a very good time trial. On the flat, on the uphill and the small descent part, I think I did everything we spoke about and discussed.

"Like I said already yesterday, I really wanted to focus just on the stage win, and after that we were going to see on the GC. We really didn't expect to take yellow, especially with the gap on the leader and Lipowitz, but it just means that I did a good time trial and that we can only be happy and proud with the performance today."

Evenepoel led Vingegaard by 11 seconds at the mid-stage checkpoint, which came after a tricky climb, while Pogačar lay 30 seconds adrift. He'd add more time as the stage progressed, despite a "really tough" headwind blowing in the latter part of the course.

Now, he's in pole position heading into the toughest part of the Dauphiné, the closing three mountain stages on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Evenepoel said he was surprised by the gaps in what was a short time trial, and also gave some insight into what might have troubled Pogačar during the ride.

"First of all, the gap to the second one as well because it's more than one second per kilometre, which is a lot in a short TT like this," Evenepoel said. "It was only 21 minutes. I think you compare that to the TT of last year, the gaps are more or less the same, but the TT was like 10km shorter. So, I think that's good.

"I was told that Tadej was 50 seconds behind me, but I don't know what happened. Maybe he was just on a bad day. Things like that can happen. I mean, look at me at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, I think that's just something normal that sometimes the legs are not there or with the heat because it was incredibly hot today as well."

Evenepoel reiterated several times during the short post-stage interview that he and his teammates will have to take things "day by day" heading into the rest of the race.

He said, "it's better to be ahead than behind", but noted that the weekend's mountainous tests will be "completely different than what we had in the past few days", acknowledging that he could easily lose the time he gained during the time trial on any one of the upcoming stages.

"We just have to look at our result and look forward to the next days because maybe tomorrow or the day after or on Saturday I'll be one or two minutes behind and then roles are completely different," Evenepoel said.

"We just have to keep the feet on the ground, work hard, and take this as a motivation boost for the weekend and next month as well.

"The gaps aren't huge. We just have to stay focussed and make sure that they don't take too much time. Preferably, I'll take time, but that has never been done before, so I'll have to prove that towards myself."

Evenepoel was clearly pleased with the win – his team's 1000th in official competitions – and his yellow jersey.

He was happy that his form is on track for next month's Tour de France, where he'll do battle once again with Vingegaard, Pogačar, and Primož Roglič, for the sport's biggest prize.

"I think if you see at the Dauphiné [2022] when Primož and Jonas were outstanding, they were also outstanding in the Tour," he said. "It's always important to be in a good shape here in the Dauphiné.

"I don't want to celebrate too soon or be too enthusiastic now because there's a big weekend coming up, but I think it's already good the performance I've been showing in the past few days.

"I'm feeling good and happy as well, so it's always better to be in a good shape already now, so there's less stress in the last month like I had last year, for example. It's just day by day and celebrating this day as well."

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