When Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe would have been making the predictive models for the stage 18 time trial at the Vuelta a España, where they were looking to make major time gains on Enric Mas with Primož Roglič, a key comparison to look at was from stage 5 of last year's Tour de France.
Just 1km shorter than Thursday's TT at La Vuelta, Roglič gained 1:38 over the Spaniard on that day. If they wanted to completely overhaul Mas and take the red jersey, they were going to need more – 2:10 to be precise – after Mas had eked out his advantage with superiority in the mountains.
When the dust settled on Roglič's and Mas' efforts into Jerez, there was to be no miracle switch, with the red jersey defending his lead superbly to finish just 33 seconds slower than the rival who has long been beating him at the Vuelta.
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What had gone wrong for Roglič? In reality, not much. When his sports directors came to speak to the press, Sven Vanthourenhout stressed how he had done 'everything perfect', which team Head of Engineering Dan Bigham confirmed was the numerical truth, not just the right answer at the time from the team.
It was more a case of Mas riding the TT of his career, much as he claimed this was not the case, but it's fair to say Red Bull were not expecting the gap between the two to be so relatively narrow.
"Roglič had a good last sector, but then, to be honest, so did Mas, and he really outperformed our models, which is reflective of where Mas is in the race, and you can't really ignore it," Bigham told Cyclingnews outside the packed Red Bull team bus on Thursday.
"He has been by some margin the best climber, and today did his best time trial probably ever, I would say actually, [but] I need to check the numbers and see how it pans out.
"But [Felix] Gall was within about 10 seconds or so versus our prediction. Callum [Thornley] was actually a second slower. Roglič was seven seconds quicker. Finn [Fisher-Black] was nine seconds quicker. So we're within 10 seconds on most of our predictions for the guys who have numbers on, and yeah, Mas was just a whole lot faster than probably you would have stuck a number on three weeks ago."
Given the context of not being able to train on his TT bike before the Vuelta at all, due to being hit by a driver in training near Livigno, Roglič himself was delighted with the performance, simply conceding that Mas was untouchable for the moment. Two mountain stages remain, but what we've seen ever since Mas inherited red is that there's a considerable gap between the two when it comes to climbing.
The time trial was Roglič's big chance.
Time trials no longer a major focus for Roglič
Roglič remains in the upper echelon, but was once one of the absolute best time trial riders in the world, winning eight Grand Tour ITT stages down the years, an Olympic title in Tokyo, and finishing second at the World Championships in 2017.
There was talk at the start of Roglič not riding the same developmental model of Specialized TT bike that Remco Evenepoel had access to at the Tour. But Bigham also revealed the lack of time the Slovenian has been dedicating to time trialling in what will be his final year on Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
"So in my first year, I worked with him quite a bit, and we did quite a lot of testing," Bigham told Cyclingnews.
"To be honest, the last year, I don't think we've done a single aero test, which is probably more of a reflection on where he feels he is in his position and what evolution he wants or doesn't want, and also what he wants to focus on.
"Obviously, family is one big important thing for him, but also at the same time, his ambitions require him to just train a lot. And his opinion was he didn't think he could evolve his position any further, so he wasn't that fussed by doing more testing."
While it's an important point to note, and perhaps could have meant for a few seconds gained here and there on the course on Thursday, Bigham was certain that it wouldn't have done much in the way of pulling back the extra time he required to really move closer to Mas' hold on red.
"No, not particularly," he said when asked whether the change in focus was a major factor. "No, I don't think if I'd spent more time with him, we would have found – what did we need, 90 seconds? So yeah, I mean 90 seconds on this course-that's about 45 watts. I'm not finding 45 watts. That's about 12% drag reduction. I can dream of that, but yeah."
Focusing on the younger riders
Bigham also pointed to how Red Bull's focus as one of the top teams when it comes to ITT research and development is mostly aimed at their up-and-coming generation of riders.
With the best rider against the clock in the world among their ranks in Evenepoel, the potential trickle-down effect of his influence, Bigham's, and all of the Engineering team at the German WorldTour squad was visible in the top performances of Callum Thornley, who finished second on stage 18, and Finn Fisher-Black in sixth.
"There's only so many tests that you can run over a year, and if you're going to pick anybody, you invest in that next generation that are coming through," explained Bigham.
"Callum's obviously a great example of this, and Finn's had a lot of work as well. But also people like [Giulio] Pellizzari, like Luke Tuckwell, these are the guys who are going to be winning us races for the next five to 10 years. We want to invest early because this kind of stuff compounds.
"It's not just that you find improvement and it's lost. You find improvement, and you keep building on that. You adapt, you get better, and you keep improving. And you've got to start that process early, when they're in the Devo team, which is a great thing for us.
"We have under-19, under-23, and obviously World Tour teams. We have a great conveyor belt there. We have so many riders who are coming through and continue to come through. But it just means that my job ends up being working with the younger guys to make sure we put them in a good position. So when they get to the World Tour, it's fine-tuning and not drastic changes."
In the end, drastic changes would not have changed much for Primož Roglič in his pursuit of red in the TT, but he was at peace with that, and with Red Bull admitting that Mas simply performed much better than any of their models could predict, they will simply have to live with that.
Only an unpredictable miracle in the mountains from the four-time Vuelta winner can turn this race around now.
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