After Remco Evenepoel lashed out at teammate Florian Lipowitz, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have downplayed any suggestions of an internal rivalry forming between their two co-leaders at the Tour de France.
Evenepoel's anger was revealed after stage 6 of the Tour, when he told Flemish media that the German had refused to give him a lead-out into Gavarnie-Gèdre, as they fought and lost out on third place and the bonus seconds to Isaac del Toro.
"I had asked for a lead-out, and I didn't get one," said Evenepoel "Yes, I was angry, and rightly so. In Catalunya, I rode at the front for him for 30 kilometres. I asked him to do one kilometre of work at the front, and that wasn't possible. That made me angry, and that will need to be discussed thoroughly tonight."
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That evening, the drama was best summed up by Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad's headline: "How Remco Evenepoel set the shared leadership with Florian Lipowitz ablaze with five sharp sentences." Angry at the finish and angry with the teammate he was supposed to work so well with, should Red Bull be worried about tensions boiling over?
Red Bull team boss Ralph Denk has said that, in spite of Evenepoel's comments, the whole issue is "being made out to be bigger than it actually was", and that the pair had reconciled over dinner in the team hotel yesterday evening.
"Yes, there was a bit of disagreement, a language barrier, but also in the heat of the moment, that was after over 180km of mountain stage, but it was no big deal," said Denk, debriefing the day's action on the team's Inside Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe – Tour de France podcast.
"I saw it earlier, the two guys talked about it, so there is really nothing major, and they even sat together at dinner and laughed, so the topic is being made out to be bigger than it actually was."
Despite the drama, the Red Bull duo do sit in a strong position after the first mountain stage and six days of tough racing, with Evenepoel in fourth overall and Lipowitz 30 seconds further back in seventh.
While well back from overall leader and stage 6 winner Tadej Pogačar, at 3:30 and 4:00 behind, respectively, Evenepoel and Lipowitz are well in the fight to match their previous bests from the Tour, third, and aren't too far down on Jonas Vingegaard in second.
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