Dani Martinez predicted that Ineos Grenadier's Tour de France hierarchy would not be decided by the Super Planche des Belle Filles climb, but when the dust settles, Geraint Thomas is the British super team's He has emerged as the best finisher and now leads the GC riders' trifecta.

Race leader Tadej Pogachar (UAE Team Emirates), along with Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), raced down the steep final 200m of the race's first summit finish, but Thomas was only 14 seconds behind Primosz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), who finished 5th He finished in fifth place, just 14 seconds behind.

Adam Yates finished in ninth place, 29 seconds back, with Martinez 45 seconds behind. Tour debutant Tom Pidcock also finished in the same time as Martinez.

Pogachar gained an additional 10-second time bonus to take the stage win ahead of Vingegaard. Thomas moved into third place by 1:10 and passed Yates in fourth place by 1:18. Pidcock was seventh at 1:35, second in the Best Young Rider Competition behind Pogachar. Martinez dropped to 8th place with 1:55, but will certainly move up in the GC in the high mountains.

Thomas called on the Ineos Grenadiers team to use their strength in numbers wisely.

"It's good to have everybody out there," Thomas said. 'We haven't done a proper mountain stage yet and yet we're there. We want to make sure we use our numbers well over the next two weeks and don't attack at random."

Thomas is aware of the challenges he and Ineos Grenadiers face against Pogachar and Vingegaard, but his confidence grows with each good result in an important stage; he showed the same strength in the 2019 Tour de France on the Plaine de Belle-Feuil, finishing overall second place overall.

"2019 was similar. I'm happy to be in the mix," Thomas said. 'Obviously Pogachar is strong. He can run on cobblestones and he can win sprints with uphill finishes.

However, he did not share the view that the Slovenian is invincible, highlighting the team's potential weaknesses as a cause for optimism.

"He has (Rafal) Micah, and (George) Bennett is having a good run. But the others are struggling on the climbs; the three of us are going to try." [Of course, not only Pogachar is strong, but also Jumbo Visma. Jumbo Visma is also strong. But we are in the middle of it. So we definitely want to make the most of these numbers."

To help him recover from the heat and hard racing, Adam Yates ran to the Ineos Grenadiers team bus, 7 km from the finish line, and then jumped into an ice bath made from a kiddie pool.

He was less concerned about losing a few seconds on the dirt road to the summit of Super Planche de Belles Fils and was happy to be in the top 10 with his teammates and to have multiple options because of the proximity of the high mountains.

"I like to jump out of the saddle and use the bigger gears, but I can't go very fast on these surfaces. That's the reality, G [Gelant] was up there and we are still in the mix," Yates explained, looking ahead to the long and hard races still to come in the Alps and Pyrenees.

"It will be a long three weeks. We want to send the three of us to GC for as long as possible and see what we can do in the final week."

"We're going to have a lot of fun," Yates said.

"Pog (Pogachar) and Rog (Roglic), plus Jonas Vingegaard, are in such good shape that it's hard to beat them one-on-one. If the three of them were fighting and not so different, then maybe we could do something."[31