ANALYSIS | What the 2025 Criterium du Dauphiné tells us about the Tour de France contenders

The 2025 Critérium du Dauphiné has wrapped up, and with just 19 days to go until the Tour de France, the biggest names in cycling have now shown their cards. Tadej Pogacar won the race in dominant fashion, Lenny Martinez snatched the final stage, and several Grand Tour contenders left the French Alps with more questions than answers.

So, what exactly did we learn, and what does it mean for the yellow jersey battle come July?

There was never really a doubt about who the top favourite for this year’s Tour was. But if there was any room for debate, Tadej Pogacar ended it. The Slovenian didn’t just win the Dauphiné; he controlled it from start to finish. Three stage wins, the green jersey, and the overall title, his first at this race, came with a sense of effortlessness that will have sent a chill through his rivals.

On the climbs, he didn’t even need to stand up to drop Jonas Vingegaard. On Stage 7, Pogacar looked as though he was on a high-tempo training ride while those around him were on the limit. His 99th career win is now in the books, and his 100th looks a matter of when, not if, very possibly in the first week of the Tour.

The key takeaway? Pogacar is the man to beat, and after the Dauphiné, the gap to the rest looks wider than it did before.

Jonas Vingegaard has made a career out of peaking precisely when it counts, but the 2025 Dauphiné suggested he has some catching up to do. Second overall, 59 seconds behind Pogacar, sounds respectable. But on the road, the gap looked more telling than the numbers suggest. This was his first race since Paris–Nice in March, and only his fifth day of competition since the 2024 Tour. His time trial form looked solid, but he had no answer to Pogacar when the road tilted upward.

The Tour de France has always been the season’s only real objective for Vingegaard. He won in 2022 and 2023 by building to a perfect peak. There’s no panic in his camp, but time is short. He’ll need to take a big step forward in the next three weeks to challenge Pogacar again.

For Remco Evenepoel, the Dauphiné was even more of a mixed bag. He produced a blistering ride to win the Stage 4 time trial and take the yellow jersey, but things unravelled from there. A crash, a flare-up of his pollen allergy, and a lack of racing miles saw him fade to fourth overall, 4 minutes and 21 seconds back. While this might seem like a major blow, there’s a precedent. In 2024, Evenepoel was seventh and over two minutes behind the Dauphiné winner and still arrived at the Tour in far better shape.

Still, the clock is ticking. Pogacar looks ready now. Vingegaard and Evenepoel need every one of the 19 days remaining.

While much of the focus was on the big three, Florian Lipowitz quietly turned in the performance of his career. The 24-year-old German finished third overall, just 2 minutes and 38 seconds behind Pogačar, and claimed the white jersey as best young rider. More significantly, he beat Evenepoel and every other GC contender not named Pogacar or Vingegaard.

Lipowitz’s rise couldn’t come at a more interesting time for his team. Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe’s marquee man, Primoz Roglic, crashed out of the Giro and has not raced since. If he isn’t 100% fit for the Tour, there’s a strong case to be made for backing Lipowitz as co-leader, or even leader outright.

His consistency in the mountains and calm execution across the week showed that he’s more than just an emerging talent. He might be the safest GC option the team has heading into July.

Mathieu van der Poel didn’t win a stage or the green jersey at the Dauphiné, but he leaves the race satisfied and sharpened. Coming off a wrist injury from a mountain bike crash, there were question marks about his condition. Those were put to rest. He was active, aggressive, and looked to be building the race rhythm he lacked in previous Tour campaigns.

In 2024, van der Poel came into the Tour cold and didn’t hit top form. This year, he’s not only won Milano–Sanremo and Paris–Roubaix already, but also used the Dauphiné to build stage racing form. With more days in the first week of the Tour for classics specialists, he will have chances to attack early, and a second career Tour de France stage win is well within reach.

The 2025 Dauphiné didn’t just confirm Tadej Pogacar as the Tour de France favourite, it amplified the sense that he’s riding on another level. But it also offered glimmers of possibility for those chasing him. Vingegaard and Evenepoel may not be Tour-ready yet, but they know how to peak at the right time. Meanwhile, Lipowitz's emergence adds a fascinating subplot, and van der Poel looks primed to provide fireworks in week one.

If the Dauphiné was a dress rehearsal, Pogacar was already in costume. The rest of the cast has just under three weeks to get ready.