Jonas Vingegaard, the leader of Team Visma - Lease a Bike, needed reassurance after the difficult day he had in the Caen time trial, and yesterday in the sixth stage of the Tour he found it at the end of a day passed without too many difficulties. Therefore, Visma-Lease a Bike and Vingegaard himself can breathe a sigh of relief, even though their intention was to ensure that the yellow jersey remained with Pogacar, to keep him engaged even after the race.

"Obviously, it wasn't an easy day, but it wasn't the hardest we've faced so far: the beginning was difficult, then the pace gradually decreased until the breakaway formed, and then again at the end the pace became even tougher".

Vingegaard seems to have recovered after the disappointing time trial performance on Wednesday. His form has improved, but perhaps he is not yet at his peak. "I definitely feel better compared to the time trial. It was a tough day for me, so I was definitely disappointed with the result, as is right, but as I said yesterday morning before the start, today is a new day and I think I felt much better, so yes, I'm happy with how I felt and now we'll focus on tomorrow".

The first week of the Tour de France has undoubtedly been more challenging than expected. The best riders battled from the first day of the race, and then there were crashes and the time trial that threw the entire Visma-Lease a Bike team off balance. The crisis now seems overcome, and the Dutch team looks more optimistically towards the upcoming stages.

"I don't think the efforts of the first week were the reason for my difficulties, we're quite sure of that. If that had been the reason, I would have suffered even more today, and that didn't happen. We still need to analyze it, and we've had a rather demanding first week. When I first saw the Tour route, I thought it would be a much easier first week, but that was absolutely not the case".

Vingegaard is convinced that this Tour will be much tougher than expected and will remain so until the last day. Compared to the Dauphiné, he feels better, but the most difficult part of the race is yet to come. "I think this Tour de France will end up being very tough. I've definitely improved a lot since the Dauphiné, I'm 100% sure. Is it sufficient? We'll only see that at the end of the Tour".