"When he's not there, we definitely have to ride differently" - BORA DS Aldag on Roglic and the impact of racing without Pogacar

Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe have come off the opening weekend of the Giro d'Italia in the race lead and in what is pretty much the best situation they could've realistically hope for. All the key stages of the race are ahead of the riders, but for the time being the German team has done a stellar job and Primoz Roglic has shown his great form by gaining time on all the competition.

"Our goal is to have the pink jersey in Rome, at the end of the Giro," Aldag said in an interview with Sportschau. "That determines our tactical approach. Therefore, giving it up again straight away is no problem at all. We will continue to focus on our main competitors". Aldag confirms what many say, which is that the team will not look to work everyday to have the jersey on it's shoulders (although Mads Pedersen now took over) but instead give freedom to breakaways in order to escape the responsibility and extra work.

He believes that in this race, there will be a lot more tactical thought than at the Tour de France where Roglic's rivals in the mountnains will be stronger. "With Tadej, it's easy. You just do your job, and most of the time he wins. When he's not there, we definitely have to ride differently".

Last year at the Vuelta a España BORA seemed to time their bid for the overall win to perfection, although they had to battle Ben O'Connor throughout two whole weeks to gain back the time lost in a breakaway on the first week. However the Australian's inconsistency allowed for Roglic's comeback.

Aldag argues that currently, Roglic is more set in the German team and things work more smoothly. "We get along better now, and Primoz is better integrated into the team".

A good example of this was Jan Tratnik's purposeful time loss on the opening stage of the race, so that he would start the time-trial the next day very early and Roglic could see his effort whilst on the team car. "That way he could get a feel for how fast the corners are, how fast you can go in the roundabout. That was super important". At the time being, Roglic goes into stage 4 in second place on the overall standings, 16 seconds ahead of Juan Ayuso.