"We started off Mont Ventoux pretty strongly, keeping a pretty good tempo. Afterwards, it was hard to find some coordination in the group and I told the guys: ‘Let’s catch Mas first and then we can play.’ That’s what we did indeed. We then tried to attack, but it was hard to distance each other in the headwind. In hindsight, I should have pushed a bit more in the steep part at the bottom before we came to the open section because, in the end, we played the victory to the line.
I knew it was a right-hand turn into the line, so I tried to get the jump on Valentin [Paret-Peintre] before that. I managed to do that, but those last hundred metres are so hard… He had a better kick and beat me to the line.
I need to pick the hard days, because those are the stages that suit me the best. There are some stages left that could suit me."
