"I think we have made no mistake on that day": Marcel Kittel defends Rockets in a crash-marred Napoli sprint

The Unibet Rose Rockets are halfway through their Grand Tour debut. The goal of winning a stage is yet to be ticked off, however team's head tactician and sprinter coach Marcel Kittel is nevertheless very satisfied with how the team presented itself so far in the race with one podium result for Groenewgen and a top-10 finish for both the experienced Wout Poels and debutee Niklas Larsen.

The French-Dutch pro team was in the center of attention in particular after stage 6 with a sprint finish in Napoli. Or well, would-be sprint finish, had it not rained. That caused the final turn on cobbles to become extreme slippery and the Rockets train - placed at the front at the time - lost its footing and crashed with finish line in sight.

"Many things were said and I don't know, some things I feel were also taken a bit out of context in that sense that it creates distraction and we don't want that," Kittel said on the Domestique Hotseat podcast.

"Internally, we also looked at that last corner after everything happened and we asked ourselves why did it happen? Was the tyre pressure too high? No, it wasn't. The tyres are good in rain. The riders trust our tyres. Okay, did they brake? Did they pedal? Didn't we take the ideal line? Why did it happen?"

Beyond all these speculations, it ultimately comes down to marginal differences between staying upright and crashing, Kittel assesses:

"The honest conclusion is we don't know exactly. And why don't we know exactly? Because it's that 0.5 per cent range that you have in a final like this. There is basically only black or white. One little movement with your ass on your saddle might cause already that little slippery reaction and you see Elmar goes down, Dylan goes immediately down, a couple of other guys go down and Ballerini who taking a different line has maybe 0.3km per hour less speed gets through."

"It's something that just happens. You take a risk to win and you get through it sometimes by taking that risk and nothing happens. And on that day, we took the risk to win, which I think is always what we have to do in these moments. Because hesitating or being scared of not taking the risk will set us up for failure anyway. I think we have made no mistake on that day."

A lot of criticism, including from Jonathan Milan who crashed too, afterwards was aimed at race organizers who have approved of this potentially dangerous finish with the upside of a "more scenic" finish in Napoli.

"Throughout the year we have many of these situations and I think we are talking a lot about safety and trying to protect the riders better. It's not about this particular day, but everything is kind of set up in a process. We have the riders' association which is very vocal in it, we have actually a course design that has certain requirements. I think we just safeguard what we already have and maybe we can improve the whole process around safety."

Despite the fathomable disappointment on stage 6, Kittel still rates Rockets' first-ever Grand Tour block a solid 4.5/5, with just the cherry on top missing. Further opportunities should come in stages 15 and 21, granted Groenewegen and the entire sprint regimen survives the brutal mountain stages within time limit.