Tour de France: Lipowitz and Roglic: Messen in the Pyrenees

Red Bull team boss Ralph Denk looks forward to the achievements of his two top drivers at the first hard mountain stages in the Pyrenees. Who has the better legs in the 112nd Tour de France in the steep climbs of the mountain range between France and Spain? The young starter Florian Lipowitz or the experienced captain Primoz Roglic?

Before the exhausting stages in the Pyrenees, the four-time Vuelta winner Roglic continues to have the leadership role in the German cycling stable-even if the 35-year-old Slovenian is currently a place behind the 24-year-old German as a ninth of the overall class. “Primoz is already our man. But Primoz has the class and honesty. If it doesn’t work, he says that beforehand. Then you have to deny yourself,” said Denk to the German Press Agency.

Red Bull team boss satisfied with his top drivers’ services

“But we sit in the comfortable situation that we have two men in the top ten,” said Denk. “Of course we want to go forward with both of them – or at least with one. But is it primoz? Is it Florian? Or are both? Probably there will be a tough fight and then a first tendency.”

So far, the 51-year-old Upper Bavarian is very satisfied with the performance of his two top racing drivers. Above all, the sixth place of the former biathlete Lipowitz when I was driving in Caen was very impressed. “That gave him a lot, a lot of confidence. I was really happy for him,” said Denk, who recently described the structure of Lipowitz as a top round driver as a “heart project”.

Think defends defensive racing tactics

Denk is also happy with Roglic’s presentation so far. “He reached southern France without falling. That was our goal. We already had concerns about that,” admitted Denk. The team’s rather defensive tactics on the first eleven stages paid off. “We just know that falling out of the track more than that is the case with other drivers.” Most recently, the Slovenian fell at the Giro d’Italia at the end of May and had to give up.

Now for “Edelhelfer” Lipowitz and his captain Roglic it finally goes into their preferred terrain. Today it goes over 180.6 kilometers and 3,850 vertical meters into the destination of Hautacam. On Friday, the short but hard time of the mountain is over 10.9 kilometers with the steep climb to the airfield in Peyragudes on the tour program.