The Visma-Lease a Bike team is at a loss for an explanation for Jonas Vingegaard 's heavy defeat in the time trial of stage five of the Tour de France, where the Danish rider lost more than a minute to his great rival Tadej Pogačar.

Vingegaard endured a nightmare day on the 33km Caen course, constantly losing time at every intermediate checkpoint. At the end of the 38-minute effort, he looked exhausted and defeated.

The poor performance dropped him to fourth in the general classification, overtaken by Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels). But the most worrying fact is the widening gap behind the yellow jersey Pogačar, from 8 seconds to a staggering 1:13.

'I don't have an explanation,' Girscha Niermann, Head of Racing at Visma, said frankly.

"Before the time trial, everything was fine, no problems. We realized after a few kilometers that he was losing seconds, and the situation only got worse."

Vingegaard himself admitted:

"My legs weren't working well, and the result reflected my feelings. I was struggling with both the bike and my legs. Fortunately, the Tour is long, and I still believe in myself and in our plan to win."

The team rules out strategy or weather issues, emphasizing that the wind affected all the big starts in the last half hour. The Dane simply didn't have enough power today.

Despite the hard blow, the team's approach will remain unchanged. With so many mountains still to climb in the coming weeks, Vingegaard remains confident:

'A minute seems like a long time, but in recent years the Tour has been won by bigger margins.'

The first opportunities to turn the situation around could arise as early as the uphill finishes of Vire Normandie and Mûr-de-Bretagne, but the real comeback attempt will probably come on stage 10 on July 14, on a brutal route more suited to his characteristics.

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