Joaquím Rodriguez and his Katusha team managed to finish yesterday’s team time trial inside the top ten, losing 28 seconds on Orica-GreenEDGE. Rodriquez harboured no regrets about the outcome of a discipline that doesn’t appeal very strongly to neither the team nor their captain.

Instead he found solace in the fact that the team succeeded in staying together for the duration of the trial.

"I'm quite satisfied about our race,” said Rodriguez. “We were very united and fluid during the entire course. The feelings are quite good and that's important for the continuation of this Tour. Regarding the gap towards the others favourites for the general classification, I can say it's in line with our expectations: we couldn't do much better in such a flat and fast course."

Rodriguez has enjoyed a quiet Tour de France so far, being able to steer clear of the crashes and the general confusion that troubled the race in Corsica. He currently trails Chris Froome (Sky) by 25 seconds and Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) by 19 seconds. This weekend the peloton will enter “Rodriguez territory” as the bunch negotiates the first two mountain stages in the Pyrenees.