Bahrain DS unhappy with Lenny Martinez' costly error at Paris-Nice crosswinds: "It was one rider's mistake, which put the whole team in difficulty"

After the withdrawal of Santiago Buitrago, Bahrain - Victorious suffered an important hit for their Paris-Nice GC aspirations. However Lenny Martínez stepped up and even won a stage. But away from the climbs, the Frenchman lost all hopes of fighting for a good result when the peloton was split in the crosswinds.

"I don't know what happened... I'll have to talk to the guys. We knew there was potential danger at that point in the race. We pushed the guys to come back, but Lenny was behind, and unfortunately, we had to get everyone back up to try to limit the damage," team DS Roman Kreuziger said in a post-race interview with DirectVelo.

The strong winds and miserable weather conditions on the day made it possible for Team Visma | Lease a Bike to do serious damage with a collective attack, and the most attentive were the ones who managed to bridge across. This included the INEOS Grenadiers, Florian Lipowitz, Mattias Skjelmose and their right-hand men. In a second peloton were the likes of João Almeida and Brandon McNulty, who limited their losses to around two minutes. And then far behind was the lightweight climber and his group, having stopped at some point and losing almost 9 minutes.

Kreuziger was disappointed with the outcome and with Martínez' bad positioning. "It was one rider's mistake, which put the whole team in difficulty. He showed yesterday that he could hope for great things in the general classification". 

The Frenchman effectively fell out of contention for the overall classification but this weekend he will still have two mountain stages in which it is possible to perform and fight for another stage win, now with a newly-found freedom as he is no longer a threat to the standings. However, he will continue to have to face the cold and rainy conditions that have spelt disaster for him in the first place.