Coming down from the summit of the Grand Colombier, the finish of stage 13 of the Tour de France, Jai Hindley began to warm up outside the Bora-Hansgrohe bus in Cyrus.

While Tadej Pogachar and Jonas Vingegaard continue to inhabit a separate realm from the rest of the field, Hindley remains steadfastly the third man in the race. The Australian minimized his damage in the Alps to hold on to third place overall.

The 17km section to the finish was the only sectional climb in the Jura region on Friday. And the summit finish repeated the same truth as the other mountains in the race, with Pogachar and Vingegaard being exceptional.

When Pogachar and Vingegaard surged in the last 600 meters, Hindley could not keep up, but did as little damage as possible. He was 1:05 behind the breakaway Mihau Kwiatkowski and 15 seconds behind the uncontrollable Pogachar, who finished sixth on the stage.

In the overall standings, he is 2:51 behind Vingegaard's yellow jersey, but still in third place, about 2 minutes behind Carlos Rodriguez.

"Today was a short stage and quite tough. The last climb was really fast and there were a lot of Bastille Day fans, it was crazy.

"I'm feeling good and I'm happy to have made up some time on the guys behind me, but unfortunately the guys in front of me lost some time."

As Hindley pedaled outside the team bus, Soinier from Beulah-Hansgrohe showed him his cell phone and told him what the current overall standings were.

On the last 600m climb, he could see Pogachar and Vingegaard moving out of his reach, but he knew he was taking his time with the other podium contenders, with the exception of Tom Pidcock.

"Pogachar is explosive in a finish like that, so when he attacked, I gave it my all to finish. It was pretty tough at the end because I ran out of gas and couldn't get my legs going."

Hindley, who won last year's Giro d'Italia and finished second overall in 2020, is making his first Tour appearance and already has a solo stage win in Larence and the maillot jaune. He lost to Vingegaard the next day in Côterets, but his first Tour was anything but a success.

Over the past year, Pogachar and Vingegaard were the overwhelming favorites to win. Hindley, on the other hand, has lived up to his billing as a potential winner of this race.

He said, "There are a lot of ups and downs, a lot of tough moments, but also a lot of good moments. This is my first Tour and I'm really enjoying it. The atmosphere and the race are great. It's really like another dimension and I'm very happy to be here."

He also said, "I'm really happy to be here.

The summit finish at Le Grand Colombier is just the beginning of a mountain trilogy as the Tour enters the Alps on Saturday with a tough stage to Morzine.

While Friday's stage was tactically straightforward with a shootout at Grand Colombier, stage 14 offers a more strategic twist, with the Col de Cou, Col du Fou, and Col de la Lamaze before plunging into the finish, Col de Joux Plain, and more are on the horizon.

"I think tomorrow will be super tough again, probably the same as yesterday. This weekend is really tough, we saw stage 15 a couple of weeks ago," [33] "and I think it's going to be a really tough one. "

Before boarding Beulah Hansgrohe's bus, Hindley also thought of his friend and fellow Western Australian cyclist Conor Lambert, who was hit and tragically killed by a truck driver in Belgium this week.

"We lost a good friend from Western Australia. My heart goes out to him, everyone back home, and his family. It's really hard to race every day when you lose a friend like that. It's really hard