Jai Hindley believes the battle for the podium in this year's Tour de France will continue all the way to Paris.

The Bora-Hansgrohe rider is in third place overall behind Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) before Friday's summit finish at the Grand Colombier.

Hindley has a plan, but is keeping it in-house ahead of three days of decisive, but seemingly inconclusive, racing, and deliberately tapped the side of his nose when asked about strategy after stage 12 on Thursday.

"I'll keep that under my hat," he said. 'I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. I've never ridden the Grand Colombier but I know it's a super tough course and it's the Tour de France so it's going to be really hard. It should be cool." [On Wednesday, the 27-year-old paid tribute to Western Australian cyclist Conor Lambert, who died in an accident while training in Belgium, after a chaotic start that saw him, Pogachar, and Vingegaard mark each other, and then the yellow jersey group for stage 12. He finished the stage in the yellow jersey group.

"There was a breakaway going on all the way up to about 90km. Everyone was involved, so we were at full strength."

"Cycling is not traditional anymore. It's a race where the unexpected happens. You have to roll with the punches. I mean, the yellow jersey is going to attack with over 100km to go. ......"

Hindley may be the only rider not mentally conceding to the dominance of Vingegaard and Pogachar.

On the steep slopes of Tourmalet on stage 6 and Puy de Dome on stage 9, he was caught by the two and instead kept his pace.

Hindley admitted that his stage win in Larns might have affected his energy reserves in the following days, but the victory, a day in yellow, and a 1:42 advantage over Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers), now second overall was worth it, he added.

"I didn't expect to go into the break that day, but in the end I think we all had a hard day. "I raced all day too, and I could have won a stage, so it was a risky move, but ...... I won a stage, I got a buffer, and winning early in the race took some of the pressure off the team.

Enrico Gasparotto, Bora-Hansgrohe's sporting director, agreed, coming to the Tour after working with Hindley, the first Australian to win the Giro d'Italia last year.

"You can always analyze things in a different way afterwards," Gasparotto said.

"Probably, yes. (He) probably spent quite a lot that day, and he paid for it with the Puy de Dome, for example. Maybe [Jai] could have regressed a little bit in the GC because he was calm and relaxed in the GC group. [but] I'm sure what we did that day was a good thing, and it was necessary for Jai's own sake, for his confidence, and for the team's sake.

"With the Tour, you never know what's going to happen every day, like crashes, illnesses, etc.

"In a big Tour, it's better to gain something in a stage than to lose something along the way. That's the way I do things, and I think it's better that way. If something happens, like if Jai doesn't sleep well at night and has a bad day on the climbs, then I have a little margin to play with, and that's definitely better."

Hindley himself admits that he improves the more he participates in Grand Tours, and has emphasized the final third of the Tour since its inception.

He spent five to six weeks on the road with Bora-Hansgrohe coach Hendrik Werner, physically reconfirming the first six stages and stages 15, 16, and 17 in the Alps.

"Tough stages are coming up. Tuesday's stage 16 time trial will be very important. The Col de la Rose climb on stage 17 is pretty spectacular and will probably be one of the toughest climbs of the race. It takes you to a high elevation (2304 meters), then a tricky descent, and then a finish at the landing zone. [And I think stage 15, which is the finish to Mont Blanc, is also spectacular with a really tough finish. I'm actually quite enthusiastic about it."