"Going to lose the Tour — no question" - Jonas Vingegaard & Visma rode like 'knuckleheads' at the Dauphiné says former Vuelta winner
CyclingWednesday, 25 June 2025 at 08:39
With the 2025 Tour de France now just weeks away, experts and analysts are looking into every detail of the recent performances of Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar in order to try and predict what will come next. According to former Vuelta a Espana winner Chris Horner, the Criterium du Dauphiné showing of Vingegaard and Team Visma | Lease a Bike left a lot to be improved upon.
"I want to put myself in the shoes of a directeur sportif at Team Visma | Lease a Bike, now that Dauphiné is done," begins the American in a video on his YouTube channel. "Normally, when the Dauphiné ends — about three weeks before the Tour de France — all the DSs at Team Visma | Lease a Bike will get together and evaluate how the race went. It’s crucial, especially if anything went wrong tactically, which in this case, it absolutely did. If they don’t meet, well then... they’re knuckleheads."
That critical term can also be used to describe the performances of Visma and Vingegaard at the Dauphiné according to Horner. "If they asked me: 'Chris, what did you think about the race?' I’d say: We looked like knuckleheads. I’d point specifically to three stages: Stage 1, Stage 6, and Stage 7," explains the 2013 Vuelta winner.
On stage 1, Horner is sharp in his analysis. "Vingegaard attacked under 6km to go. It was a good move at first... The attack drew out Tadej Pogacar, which is exactly what you want early — to wear his legs down," he says. "But what followed? Vingegaard started pulling with Pogacar. That’s a cardinal mistake. You do not pull with Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel, or Mathieu van der Poel."
"After the stage, Vingegaard himself said he was surprised to only lose 4 seconds and finish 2nd. If you’re surprised by that, then the move was a mistake. A knucklehead move. And one we’ve never seen from Jonas before," continues Horner's critique. "Look at past races — like the Tour de France or Paris-Nice — Jonas always refused to work with Tadej when it risked handing him time bonuses. But here, suddenly, he pulls with Pogacar and Evenepoel? Tactically, it made no sense."
Pogacar took the stage win on the opening day of the Dauphine
As for stage 6? "This was the first of three mountain stages. UAE had only one big threat: Tadej Pogacar," Horner recalls. "So what did UAE do? They rode from the front all day, trying to reel back a break with Romain Bardet up the road. Everyone should have seen it: UAE was setting up Pogacar to attack on the final climbs. What did Visma-Lease a Bike do? They made it harder. They started drilling it with 45km to go. Sepp Kuss and Jorgenson attacked early. Why? UAE was already doing the work."
"Had they saved energy, Jonas might’ve stayed on Pogi’s wheel through the first climb, held on during the false flat, and maybe only lost a few seconds. He might even have kept the yellow jersey," Horner continues. "Instead, they rode like knuckleheads."
Read also
Stage 7 meanwhile, will go down as a misuse of resources for Visma according to Horner. "The big mountain day — 130km, with climbs like Col de la Madeleine and La Rosière. When coverage finally kicked in, we saw Jorgenson on the front of the penultimate climb. That should never happen unless you’re 100% sure Jonas can drop Pogacar right then and there — which we know wasn’t going to happen after what Pogi did on Stage 6," he notes.
"Jorgenson should’ve been up the road or saved for the final climb, so he could help Jonas close gaps when Pogacar inevitably attacked. Instead, he was burned too early," he assesses harshly. "Another tactical mistake."
"So, if I’m sitting at the table with the Visma DSs, I say this: 'We screwed up stages 1, 6, and 7. UAE rode a tactically flawless race. Pogacar only really went all-in on Stage 6 — and still won the GC,'" Horner concludes. "Jonas said he hopes to be better for the Tour in three weeks. He can be. But if we keep racing like we did here at Dauphiné, we’re going to lose the Tour — no question."
claps 31visitors 19
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- If you believe in free-range, no GMO food. If you believe that game management of certain species, like deer, requires hunting (which it does, unless we have a major re-introduction of predators like wolves and bear and cougars), unless we double the roadkill, then faux abhorrence of hunting is a manifestation of tribal ignorance. In your opinion, would it be better to outlaw firearms in hunting and just go back to stampeding animals off cliffs, like our ancestors once did?
WheelWoman19-07-2025 - I never implied that it was illegal - quite the opposite!WheelWoman19-07-2025
- Love this podium, I remember Tour de l'Avenir 2018, Tadej and Arensman were kids. First Tadej, second Arensman (today reverse) and third the dear Gino Mader.
maria2024202419-07-2025 - Both are overdoing things. Having been at many races of all levels, it’s a miracle things don’t happen more often, spectators, riders, bikers, drivers, ALL guilty of naivety and ignoring all others at times. Too many seem to consider every space is reserved for them once they feel they have a purpose there.Mistermaumau19-07-2025
- Rebuilding would mean they must evaluate their budget.awp19-07-2025
- A 50+ million budget team not even in the top 5 GC of any GTs is not success especially when they have won a lot of GTs in the past their recruitment also tends to be for helper riders like Tobias Foss which is a waste of money when they donot have a leader to win GCabstractengineer19-07-2025
- Regardless of what they were, they are very different now.awp19-07-2025
- Part of being a dumbass...bobo19-07-2025
- That doesn’t work the same way for everyone, a small team with no expectations and nothing to lose obviously has more chance of looking successful than a big team with history going downhill.Mistermaumau19-07-2025
- There are lots of ways to reap the rewards of a GT without being on the podium. EF has made a successful venture of doing this. Their sponsors receive a lot of value without having to spend very much in relation to UAE or Visma. I understand what your saying though, if they rebuild in the next few years with a quality rider like a Lipowitz, they could do something. Tadej has about four to five more years before he is done, in fact his contract ends in 2030 and he has said that might be it for him. Jonas is two years older than Tadej so I give him about the same time if not less.awp19-07-2025
I watch Horner's youtube channel, he is a great tactician and he's not wrong, Jonas has an uphill battle, but we've seen him rise to challenge before.
He is a critic. He says what went wrong after the fact. A tactician is one who plans tactics before the battle. If he was so great, there would be a line of teams, ready to hire him
No-one wants to employ dopers as DSs, it's suspicious. Except for UAD, obviously, they quite like dopers.
If he wasn't good at that he would wouldn't have been the winningest US racer in the modern era. It's funny how people can throw criticism when they never achieved .01% of what someone else has.
Who said Horner was a doper? Pretty lame attack with no basis in reality. He would have been easy to go after during the Armstrong investigations.
It would be better if Horner figured out the mistakes NOT to make, rather than pointing them out after. Pointing out mistakes in hindsight has little to no use (except if the team didn't realise it, but no team is so intellectually challenged for that to happen).
What would your tactics have been?
On stage 6, Pogačar was isolated, but then Visma mysteriously slowed down, allowing Pavel Sivakov to come back (along with Benjamin Tulett), which was all Pogačar needed. Kuss and Jorgenson should have carried on attacking - not that they'd have be able to drop Pogačar, but, in an absolute best scenario, they'd have stopped him from dropping Vingegaard.