Even if Fabio Aru is officially the Astana leader at the Tour de France, sports director Giuseppe Martinelli makes it clear that if Vincenzo Nibali is further up in the classification, the Italian can play his card.

"We have the Olympics in our head, though, and Fabio is our leader at the Tour. There’s hope. Who wouldn’t dream of winning the Tour and having a captain like Fabio and an important rider like Vincenzo? Any manager would want to be in my position now", Martinelli told Cycling Weekly. "Our strategy will stay the same because if Vincenzo is further up in the classification, I don’t see why… The classification is calculated at the end of the Tour, so we’ll race in the same way. I’m faithful in Fabio, and faithful in Vincenzo doing what he has to do."

It has been remoured that there is a bad atmosphere in the Kazakh team and perhaps we will have a repeat of the internal battle between Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome in 2012. "They are friends how things are now, yes, but who knows down the road! For sure, they respect each other, they are big champions, and they know that to have two is better than one."

“Vincenzo is here to help Aru," general manager Alexander Vinokourov said. "It’s difficult to win two big tours in one year, the Giro and the Tour. That’s my opinion."