Peter Sagan netted his second win of this year’s edition of Tour of California and took the overall race lead, as he smashed the previous times set in the 10.6km time trial. The Tinkoff-Saxo captain now eyes a small opportunity in the overall GC leading with 28 seconds after the fast TT, where also Bennati and McCarthy delivered top performances.
 
It looked like a motivated Peter Sagan has he vigorously forced his bike up to speed after rolling down the start ramp. And after crossing the line in a pulverizing time 15 seconds faster than the runner-up, Sagan also stated that he had been very motivated.
 
“I was feeling in great shape today and this shorter race course helped me. This morning I was feeling confident and I believed I could make it. I was aiming at the yellow jersey without focusing on a stage victory but I got both. I tried, I gave my best and I'm happy with the result. My sports director Patxi Vila was following me in the team car and as he was giving me my intermediate times, I saw I was getting faster, which made me confident in the fact that I would have a big advantage”, says Peter Sagan, who explains that he has been working on his time trial.
 
“Over the winter, I spent more time on my time-trial position and carried out tests in the Specialized wind tunnel as well as on race tracks in Europe after Paris-Roubaix. That had, undoubtedly, a positive impact on my time-trial performance. If Maciej Bodnar had been here, I am sure he would have won and we could have had two Tinkoff-Saxo riders on the podium”.

With a 28 second lead in the GC to Toms Skujins and more than 50 seconds to the pre-race GC favorites, Sagan adds that he will do his best on the mountainous stage 7:
 
“Tomorrow, I will try to be in the front and go for the GC but I don't know because of my weight whether I will be able to do that”.
 
Due to adverse weather conditions, the scheduled 24.2k ITT at an altitude of 2000 meters was replaced with a shorter one of 10.6km at Big Bear Lake. Tinkoff-Saxo’s sports director Tristan Hoffman compliments the proactive decision by the race organizers as well as the performance of his captain.
 
“First of all, I would like to thank the organization for setting up a perfect race course in such a short notice. And most importantly of course, Peter was fully motivated and gave his best. Not only did he take the stage he was also able to move to the overall lead and claim the jersey. For us, it was a very good parcours, a very fast 10km circuit, not very technical. It was also more suited to Peter Sagan given it was short and fast”, Hoffman says.

The sports director also notes that he was happy to see Daniele Bennati and GC-hope Jay McCarthy pull off top ten finishes.
 
“I am also very happy with what Bennati achieved. He finished fifth, just 22 seconds behind Peter. McCarthy had a good performance as well, finishing eighth in the time-trial and moving to sixth overall. I don't think we could have asked for anything more from the squad”, adds Tristan Hoffman before looking ahead:
 
“Peter now has a 28-second advantage over Toms Skujins but tomorrow's finale is extremely tough. Given the position he is in, I believe Peter will go for it but so will the pure climbers. They have been looking forward to the climb to Mt. Baldy for the whole week. Peter feels in good condition, he is very fit and has shown on the other climbs that he was able to follow the best. You never know but it will certainly be a tough and exciting stage”, finishes Tristan Hoffman.