Hincapie, on Armstrong's podcast: "Van Aert could have helped Jonas instead of sprinting and would have taken 7 seconds off Pogacar"

Lance Armstrong analyzes every day in his Youtube channel The Move the stages of the Tour de France. He is always accompanied by George Hincapie, who was his faithful squire at US Postal, and who made a curious observation after the eleventh stage.

The American cyclist believes that Wout van Aert could have helped take a few seconds off Jonas Vingegaard if, instead of fighting for the sprint, he had stayed with him to the finish line. It should be remembered that the group of the main sprinters was cut off from the rest of the peloton and arrived 7 seconds ahead. In that lead group was Wout van Aert.

Hincapie believes that if the Belgian, instead of trying to fight for the win when it is becoming very clear in this Tour de France 2023 that he does not have the strength to fight with Jasper Philipsen and company, had continued to accompany Vingegaard, the Dane could have taken 7 seconds off Tadej Pogacar:

"They have to start making decisions. Van Aert is an awesome rider, he's not at the same level as last year or things aren't clicking for him. Today (for yesterday's stage Wednesday) he could have taken 7 seconds on his rivals if he had stayed with his leader, however with Laporte he fought for the sprint and finished ninth or something like that, which is nothing for him, so he could have stayed with Jonas and that would have gone into the front bubble and he could have taken that 7 second bonus from Pogacar, I think it's a missed opportunity."