Key Takeaways: Critérium Du Dauphiné Stages 1-3
Breaking down how the opening three stages of the Dauphiné were won, and what the next five stages can tell us about the upcoming Tour de France
It might seem like the Giro d’Italia just wrapped up, but the Critérium Du Dauphiné, an eight-stage race through the Dauphiné region in the southeast of France and a traditional Tour de France warmup race, has begun this week, which means we are officially in Tour de France speculation season.
So far, the race has featured mostly muted action through its opening three stages, with the major overall contenders, many of them also contenders for the upcoming Tour de France, sitting back while the stages are contested by the fastmen. But, while there hasn’t been significant action from the main GC contenders due to the flat-to-rolling parcours and tougher profiles saved for the latter half of the week, we have seen three interesting sprints with plenty of intriguing subplots, and are set up for an exciting GC battle, which starts in earnest tomorrow with a challenging 31-kilometer time trial.
Current GC Top Three
1) Christophe Laporte +0
2) Julian Alaphilippe +11
3) Richard Carapaz +17
Dauphiné Stages 1-3 Notebook:
Stage 1
11.1km: The early breakaway is nearly caught at the top of the final climb before descending down to the finish. Rune Herregodts makes what appears to be a pointless attack just before the descent.
2.5km: However, due to the tricky wet descent, the attack turns out to be an incredibly smart move. By the bottom, Herregodts has increased his gap out to 14 seconds, while the peloton has broken up behind.
400m: Herregodts appears to have a chance at stealing the stage as they enter the final straight. Behind, Jumbo is using up the last of their domestiques attempting to keep the pace high in the extremely reduced peloton.
100m: With Herregodts dangling, but still appearing to have a chance, Laporte opens up his sprint behind and starts to close the gap incredibly fast.
Finish: Laporte expertly closes the gap and overtakes Herregodts right before the finish line.
Stage 1 Top Three
1) Christophe Laprote +0
2) Matteo Trentin +0
3) Rune Herregodts +0
Stage 2
800m: With Jumbo on the front in the slightly uphill final km, an EF rider takes a flier, which has the effect of putting pressure on Jumbo to continue setting pace.
200m: After his teammates are caught, EF’s Richard Carapaz launches his sprint early in an effort to catch the others off-guard and build up an initial buffer. Alaphilippe senses this coming and immediately jumps on his wheel.
150m: If we freeze frame this, we can see Laporte is sprinting, but eating tons of wind, while Alaphilippe, who has chosen the right path, gets a relatively free ride in Carapaz’s draft.
50m: Once Alaphilippe opens up his sprint to come around Carapaz, he builds up an insurmountable gap, and the race is over.
Finish: Alaphilippe feels so comfortable with his lead that he sits up to celebrate despite having multiple victories stolen from him at the line due to this. Carapaz holds on for second and picks up some key time bonus seconds, while Laporte misses out on the podium to Trek’s Natnael Tesfatsion due to his poor positioning.
Stage 2 Top Three
1) Julian Alaphilippe +0
2) Richard Carapaz +0
3) Natnael Tesfatsion +0
Stage 3
2.3km: On the final run-in, after Alaphilippe has been ruled out due to what appeared to suffer multiple mechanical issues and flat tires, Jumbo is burning their leadout entire leadout early in order to get Laporte through a tight left-hand turn in a good position.
400m: This calculated move gets Laporte through the chaos in the front group, but it also means he is isolated and out of position towards the back when Bora opens up the final sprint for Sam Bennett.
150m: Laporte, due to raw strength, and a little bit of luck that Sam Bennett takes the entire group over to the right barrier while attempting to block Dylan Groenewegen from coming around him, is able to move up from the back of the group after the road opens up in front of him. His speed relative to the others is somewhat shocking.
Finish: Laporte surges by a fading Bennett and holds off Groenewegen, who was forced to brake to avoid crashing with Bennett (both riders would later be relegated), to get an impressive sprint win.
Stage 3 Top Three
1) Christophe Laporte +0
2) Matteo Trentin +0
3) Milan Menten +0
Key Takeaways
1) Christophe Laporte is a bonafide star
When Jumbo picked up the veteran Frenchman from Cofidis prior to the 2022 season, it was seen as a nice-to-have addition that could bolster their Classics and grand tour support squads.
But, flash forward two years, and Laporte is currently Jumbo’s second-highest PCS points scorer, and third-highest in the team’s victory rankings, behind Roglič and Vingegaard and ahead of Van Aert.
Also, so far in 2023, he has racked up four WorldTour victories and won two major Spring Classics (Gent–Wevelgem & Dwars door Vlaanderen).
And, so far at this Dauphiné, he has been incredible, with two stage wins, one of them coming in a flat sprint finish.
Compare this to Van Aert, who had two stage wins at last year’s edition. While no one would argue Laporte is more talented, or even better than Van Aert, when we compare their actual results (Van Aert has 10 wins since the start of the 2022 season while Laporte has 9), they are much closer to peers than anyone originally expected when Laporte joined the team.
An interesting thought experiment is to imagine if this version of Laporte would be capable of mounting a viable Classics, and Tour de France Green jersey, challenge to Van Aert if he had free rein on a well-run team where he was the sole stage-hunting leader.
2) Julian Alaphilippe answered criticism from within his own team with a stage win, but core issues still remain
The 30-year-old double World Champion has been under fire from his QuickStep team manager for his high salary and lack of major results over the last few seasons.
But, in what seemed to be a direct response to this criticism, he showed with his sprint win on stage 2 that he still has what it takes to challenge for wins at the biggest races.
While a stage win or two at this upcoming Tour de France certainly still seems to be on the table for the animated rider, his win-rate dropoff is undeniable, and he went back to displaying the erratic on-bike behavior that has caused him to suffer from so many crashes and injuries on stage 3.
Even counting his win on stage 2, he only has two WorldTour wins over the last 24 months, and 11 wins over the past four seasons (2.75 wins per season.
Compare this to his 24 wins in the 2019 and 2018 seasons (12 wins per season), and you can see an undeniable dropoff in his ability to convert wins, and, as a result, command a large salary from his team.
Also, another concern is that throughout today’s stage, Alaphilippe seemed to be back in the race caravan for overly-long periods of time and constantly seemed uncomfortable on, or with, his bike. This is significant since this type of jumpy/distracted behavior from Alaphilippe tends to be a physical manifestation of some sort of lurking larger issue.
3) Modern racing trends are decreasing opportunities for the traditional sprinter
So far at this Dauphiné, traditional bunch sprinters have zero wins through the three, only potential sprint stages of the 8-stage race.
This issue, where they are either being outclimbed by smaller riders like Alaphilippe on tough finishes or straight-up outkicked by more versatile riders like Laporte on flat stages, highlights just how much specialists are being ironed out of the biggest races on the calendar as wins are becoming more and more consolidated with the best all-around riders.
There will always be room for the best sprinters at the handful of true sprint stages during grand tours, but, the window of opportunity for anyone but the very best is getting smaller and smaller with every passing season.
4) The early GC gaps could end up playing a significant role in the final standings
The opening three stages of this race have been almost completely devoid of any terrain, or interesting racing, that would normally open up GC gaps and give us a look at who is on form and who isn’t.
However, through these three days of fairly uneventful racing, there are already some surprisingly significant time gaps amongst the top contenders.
Filtered GC Standings Stages 1-3
Carapaz +0
Vingegaard +6
Yates +6
Mas +21
Landa +28
While the major contenders, like Vingegaard, are behind Carapaz by six seconds due to Carapaz’s impressive sprint to take second place, and time bonus seconds, on stage two, Enric Mas and Mikel Landa lost significant time on the wt descent to the finish back on stage one.
In a race where the average margin of victory over the last five seasons is only 22-seconds, these are significant gaps, and show why Mas and Landa, who both tend to struggle on tricky descents, both of whom have zero significant GC victories (grand tour or top-seven one-week stage race) will continue to struggle to win stage races.
5) The next five stages will tell us a lot about the main GC contenders for the upcoming Tour de France
Outside of these final few kilometers of each stage, the racing action has been fairly muted so far at this Dauphiné. This will all change tomorrow when the peloton takes on a tough 31-kilometer time trial, and then four tough road stages through Sunday.
This tough terrain and racing will decide the final overall winner, but will also give us key clues as to who is on track for the upcoming Tour de France.
Things of particular interest to me:
1) Just how good is Jonas Vingegaard right now and is he on track to defend his Tour de France title?
2) Has Richard Carapaz turned his form around to a point where he can realistically challenge for an overall podium at the 2023 Tour de France, or is he still struggling to find his best form and be relegated to stage hunting?
3) After a strong start to the 2023 season, Enric Mas appeared to take a slight step back in his most recent race appearances. Is he back to a level that will allow him to compete with the top GC contenders at the Tour?
4) After a rocky run since his crash, is Egan Bernal back to a level where he can hang with the front group on tough mountain stages?