Tinkoff-Saxo got up to speed at the opening stage of Critérium du Dauphiné, which was decided in a high-speed chase, where Sky’s Peter Kennaugh kept the bunch at bay to snatch the win. Just behind, young Jay McCarthy grabbed 7th place in the bunch sprint for the secondary placements.
 
After the first act, Tinkoff-Saxo’s sports director Bruno Cenghialta noted that the team had focused on positioning Jay McCarthy for the final sprint.
 
“Today wasn’t a long stage. It was 132km and despite some hilly sections, we counted on the stage ending in a bunch sprint. It nearly did but Kennaugh made a powerful move. Our strategy was to work for McCarthy in the finale and avoid using excess energy during the stage. In the end Jay entered the sprint in a good position and 6th in the peloton’s sprint against riders like Bouhanni and Modolo is a good result for him”, says Bruno Cenghialta before adding:
 
“The guys did a good job in sticking to our plans. We still have to enter more demanding terrain to find out exactly which level everybody is on, but it was a good start today”.

Critérium du Dauphiné presents the riders with a notably challenging second part of the race, as the riders enter the high mountains. Cenghialta asserts that this is, where the GC favorites will reveal their current level.
 
“Tomorrow will most likely end in a sprint. Then we face the hard TTT and another relatively flat stage. So we’ll get the final signs on how Robert Kiserlovski and Jesper Hansen are doing, when we hit the high mountains on stage 5. We’re aiming for a good GC result and the other guys also have possibilities in the breakaways”, comments Bruno Cenghialta.
 
“But we’ll have to wait and see. We are on a good path but we know that it will be very difficult against the favorites such as Nibali, Froome, Rodriguez and so on. Our mentality is to work hard, try our very best and recognize the fact that we don’t necessarily have to take the initiative”, finishes Bruno Cenghialta.