"We went racing how I liked it today" - Team dsm-firmenich PostNL raid for Romain Bardet sees no real effect

It came as a surprise to many when whole Team dsm-firmenich PostNL lined up at the front of the peloton to dictate the pace halfway through the stage 17. Especially since their Romain Bardet hasn't had the best of days just 24 hours earlier.

As it turns Bardet already felt much better today, and wanted to put pressure on his opponents instead on the stage that was constantly up and down. "We went racing how I liked it today. When you can have an impact on the race with the team; I really enjoyed it," Bardet confides in a press release.

He further explains the tactics for the stage: "Our intent and plan was for me to get in the early break. I wasn’t far from bridging across to the first break, but the pace wasn’t so high on the first climb and with the valley roads I then sat up and waited for the bunch because I knew that it would be easy for some teams to pull me back if they wanted."

"From then, we knew the conditions would be difficult so we also tried to make a hard race as I like it when it’s harder on the pedals all day. After we pulled hard on the descent and it was split onto the next climb, we thought it could be a good time to try and attack to get ahead and put ourselves in a position to go for the stage."

"I was a bit surprised to see Pogacar keen to do some moves and in my wheel, as that then meant the other GC guys followed, and that was that. I still felt pretty good on the last climb and the guys did a really good job today so we can take confidence from it. We still have a couple of mountain stages to try something."

On the second time the riders contested the Passo Brocon, Bardet confirmed that his teammates weren't just burning their energy for nothing as he was able to push on and finish with the first group of favourites (not Pogacar) and re-gain some of the time he lost the day before.