"This was quite dangerous" - Jonas Vingegaard plays it safe and carries Paris-Nice lead into final weekend

Jonas Vingegaard won the previous two stages at Paris-Nice and this Friday afternoon he only had to defend it in the hilly arrival into Apt. The Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader responded to the late attack of Lenny Martínez but otherwise, he remained in the wheels of his teammates throughout the stage and didn't risk it in the downhill finale that proved to be quite dangerous.

Visma helped control the stage with Axel Zingle in mind, however the Frenchman struggled on the final ascent and didn't contest for the stage. Victor Campenaerts remained with Vingegaard until the final kilometers of the stage, in which Lidl-Trek tried to split the peloton and then also Lenny Martínez who tried drop his peloton companions on the final climb of the day with only a mere 5 kilometers to go.

Vingegaard was the rider who responded directly, but didn't hit the front afterwards. “I didn't really think about the stage win. I don't really like stages that finish after a descent, and this was quite dangerous, so I just wanted to get to the finish safely," he said in a post-race interview.

However it was a day to save, one of the last before the expected overall win in the French race. In that sense, it was a successful one. “But it wasn't an easy day anyway. The whole day was quite tough, so I am satisfied that we made it to the finish line.”

Whilst the Dane already made the winning gap, the peloton on paper still has a mountain stage to deal with this Saturday into Auron, the final big challenge of the week for the climbers. However, harsh weather conditions threaten to change the course, as often happens at Paris-Nice at this time of year. "We’ll just have to see what happens. They say it is going to snow a lot, so I am curious," he concluded.