Attila Valter insisted there were no hard feelings between him and Tiesj Benoot, who fought hard for Jumbo Visma in Saturday's Strade Bianche finale. Benoot finished third in Siena, while Barthel was unable to bring back winner Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), who escaped with 50km to go, and finished fifth.

The most obvious moment of discord came when Valter bridged up to Benoot with 18km to go. When Benoot turned around to confirm Valter's arrival, he gestured in exasperation, thinking the Hungarian had inadvertently brought Matej Mohoric and Quinn Simmons with him.

"Obviously I didn't pull that group back. That would have been an amateur move. I waited until they ran out of steam in the last gravel sector, saw they were struggling, and jumped into the Benoot group alone. I could see this clearly on TV," Walter told Eurosport Hungary (open in new tab).

"I did not see Tigge's hand gesture, but it later became clear that he had misunderstood the situation.

"Of course, I make mistakes. But this would not be a mistake, but my selfishness. Of course I have personal ambitions, but I am not a selfish racer.

Valter added that the Jumbo-Visma pair discussed the finale in detail after the race and trained together on Sunday for the opening time trial in Tirreno-Adriatico. The Hungarian champion, who moved from Grupama-FDJ to Jumbo-Visma this winter, admitted that he is still learning to race with new teammates and a new team style.

"I spent 20 days with Teej in Teide, but this is my first race with him.

"He missed more pulls than me and wanted to attack from behind. In the Cune Brussel Cune this worked well. My style is a little different, more like Maduas and Costa's style. We were looking to run a higher tempo on the climbs whereas Tiggy and Mohoric were looking to take us by surprise."

Walter debuted on the Gran Camino in support of Jonas Vingegaard, from Jumbo Visma, and finished fourth overall. In Strade Bianche, his first one-day race with the team, he wondered whether he should have followed Pidcock's winning move from the start instead of leaving the initial chase to others.

"At that point in the race I thought someone else should have gone with him. This is why this sport is so beautiful. You have to make big decisions with near maximum physical effort," Walter said.

"It's a little strange to me that people are talking so much about the mistakes we made instead of being satisfied with the results we achieved.

"I don't really like this stuff, but I'm proud of it because it means people are at a level where they expect results from me."