“I was surprised by how much time I lost to Remco and Jonas" - Tadej Pogacar admits his inferiority in the time trials before the Tour de France

Tadej Pogacar has admitted he was “a bit disappointed” with his performance in Stage 4’s time trial at the Critérium du Dauphiné, where he conceded significant time to Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard. But the Slovenian remains calm and focused, insisting there's no cause for concern ahead of the Tour de France.

“It was a nice time trial — hot out there — but I lost more time than I wanted, so yes, a little disappointing,” Pogacar told the media before Stage 5. “Still, there were positives to take. We’ve identified some areas to improve on the TT bike. It was a solid effort; I still finished fourth, and the GC is far from decided, so I’m happy overall.”

Despite the time gap, Pogacar showed little sign of stress, framing the Dauphiné as a stepping stone toward his primary goal in July.

“Of course, I’d have preferred to lose less time, but this is a preparation race. It’s all about building rhythm and finding good legs for the Tour. There’s no panic — three mountain stages remain, and we’ll try to make them count, but without stress. Even if I’d lost more time, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

While Evenepoel took a commanding TT win, it wasn’t the Belgian’s performance that stood out most to Pogacar — rather, how quickly the gaps opened early on.

“I was surprised by how much time I lost to Remco and Jonas in the first seven kilometres. But I climbed and descended really well after that, and I found a good balance on the bike. Remco is just at another level in TTs, no surprise there.”

Pogacar also acknowledged that his TT preparation hasn’t been a priority so far this season — a conscious trade-off in favour of altitude training and form-building for the mountains.

“Between the Classics and altitude camps, we haven’t really done the specific efforts needed for top-level time trialling. I’ve spent time on the TT bike, sure, but not pushing in the way you need to. That’s something we’ll address after the Dauphiné.”

He remains optimistic that the lessons from Stage 4 will serve him well as July approaches. “We’ve analysed the TT carefully. We know where we lost time, and we can definitely improve. There’s no reason to be worried. I know I’ll always lose a bit of time to the specialists — but hopefully not as much as yesterday.”