Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe recovered from a nasty crash for their 'engine room' Matteo Sobrero to finish fourth in the stage 5 team time trial at the Vuelta a España, keeping Jai Hindley in the top 10 on GC.
Sobrero, Red Bull's top TT rider present in Spain, came down heavily in second position mid-way through the team's effort on the 24.1km course, which threatened to derail the strong time they were on course for.
But the German squad quickly regrouped, and at the line in Figueres, only UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Visma-Lease a Bike and Lidl-Trek had gone quicker.
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"I think we can take pride in what we did. I'm pretty happy that fourth is improvements on where we've been as a team in years gone by," Dan Bigham, Head of Engineering at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, told Cyclingnews.
"We wanted to win, and I don't think we're a million miles away, 12 seconds off. OK, down in fourth, but with Matteo and what he's capable of – he's our engine room and to put it simply, a bloody awesome team time trialler – to lose him at that point in the race obviously lost us performance.
"But these things happen when you do a team time trial at the limit. You're on a knife-edge, and mistakes can and do happen. Sometimes they have severe consequences, and that's what happened there."
Sobrero was checked for a concussion after he hit his head hard on the tarmac, crashing at high speed as he touched the wheel of his teammate, who was starting to pull off the front after an effort.
He finished 3:46 after six remaining Red Bull riders finished together, and arrived from the medical van with bandages aplenty on his legs, arms and face, but Bigham was confident that he would be a starter on stage 6 from Olot.
"Thankfully, he got back on the bike and managed to finish. We haven't lost him for the rest of the race, but obviously, to lose him in that moment from a performance perspective, you lose a lot of gas, speed, and therefore a lot of time," added Bigham.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe confirmed on Thursday morning that Sobrero would continue on stage 6 with "no fractures or concussion" found after several SCAT tests and neurological exams.
"If we take everything as a collective, the guys performed incredibly well. They kept their heads on without even communicating really, got back into a great order and executed an awesome team time trial in the last sector.
"It's kind of disappointing on one side, but we're moving forward in the discipline. We're not at the top yet, but we're coming."
Red Bull finished with six instead of the minimum requirement of four at the finish, but Bigham confirmed this was due to the need to adapt their strategy, with Sobrero originally part of the finish plan.
Bigham credited Red Bull's Technical Performance manager, Jonny Wale, and the team's Head of Mental Performance, York-Peter Klöppel, for how the riders responded following Sobrero's unfortunate crash, having shown no signs of panic in the tense moment.
"You obviously hope for the best, but you plan for the worst. We go in with the strategy that we know what everyone's role is, and also when things don't go to plan, who has to pick up the slack?" Bigham told Cyclingnews.
"Sobrero was planned to finish in a four. So that has to change the strategy around. Johnny knows the order inside out on what we're trying to achieve, and basically, replanned what we were doing for the second half on the fly.
"The second half of it comes down to mental preparation – having the capacity to respond to adversity in those scenarios. Mostly, athletes deal with that very well, and it's something that we really strive on.
"We have York within the team who really focuses on this to make sure that the guys refocus on the task, don't dwell on what's happened, but take stock and think 'How do I do the best I can for what's remaining of this race?'"
Bigham, obviously a big fan of the discipline, summed up Red Bull's day in the TTT perfectly when asked if, for someone in his role, a TTT day was like Christmas coming early.
"Team time trials in general, I thoroughly love them, but I think Christmas Day – it would have been nice if we got the present we were after," he said with a smile. "It's like a slightly disappointed kid where you ask for one thing, you get a slightly different one from your grandparents – maybe that's the best analogy I can come up with."
The future of team time trials
Bigham is hopeful the discipline continues to have a resurgence, with this year's at the Vuelta being followed up by the first at the Tour for several years in 2026 in Barcelona.
The challenge they present excites the Head of Engineering, and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are already working behind the scenes to optimise their performance.
"I hope that we do a whole lot more TTTs. I've heard rumours of some races throwing them in," said Bigham. "Obviously, it's preparation towards the Tour, to bring the key teams and key riders along, which makes sense.
"For us, it's a great preparation, because it's actually, logistically, very hard to put on a team time trial at training camp. Those teams who care about it will do it, but it's not a small undertaking to bring all the riders, staff and equipment together and have the facilities and everything that goes with it. It's quite a challenge, but I think one that we revel in and want to tackle.
"It's something that we're pushing on behind the scenes. We have a really awesome project with Red Bull Advanced Technologies at the moment around TT simulation, and one aspect of that is TTT optimisation. How do you distribute your work among the riders that you have and create the optimal solution?
"It's a complex mathematical problem, but one that is pretty exciting at the same time, and I hope, therefore, if they have a resurgence, we can use that to our advantage."
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