Vincent Lavenu had high hopes for a stage victory by Jean-Christophe Peraud who ultimately finished second in Annonay-Davézieux behind David Millar, but the manager of the AG2R-La Mondiale team takes pride in the fact that it won a valuable consolation prize in the 12th stage of the 2012 Tour. It's a victory with the opposite effect of what has happened to Garmin-Sharp.
“We came to the Tour de France in order to place Ryder Hesjedal on the podium and win the team classification,” Millar revealed, crashes took out both the Canadian Giro d'Italia champion and the American who finished in the top 10 last year, Tom Danielson. It t thwarted their plans and opened the way for the current domination of the general classification by RadioShack-Nissan. The presence of a rider from Astana (Robert Kiserlovski) does not change this situation much. The Luxembourg-registered team continues to lead the dance with 12'38'' ahead of Sky Procycling and 24'33'' on Astana.