Despite only being 21 and in his neo-pro year riding hid debut Grand Tour, but Simon Yates is being touted as a potential stage winner by his Orica-Greenedge manager Matt White.

“He might be 21, but he’s a race winner,” head sports director, Matt White told Cycling Weekly. “He’ll have his opportunity to go for wins at the Tour de France, that’s for sure.”

Yates himself has said he will focus on working for the team, particularly Simon Gerrans, who stage is really suited two after being compared to Liege-Bastogne-Liege, a race Gerrans won earlier this year and he will probably pull on the Yellow Jersey if he wins that stage.

“Gerrans has a huge opportunity to win that stage,” Yates said, “If he’s up there on the first day, then he could possibly win the yellow jersey, too.”

“He’s obviously quite humble in his answers when he says that he will work for the team,” White said. “We’ve been very impressed with both Yates brothers and the reason why we brought Simon here is because he fits into the stages that we are targeting.

“He’ll be able to go off the leash in certain stages for sure. We haven’t talked about day-to-day plans, but we have a big focus on Sunday with Gerrans and he should already have a card to play. There may be a possibly for him to move ahead because it’s always better to have someone in a break. Afterwards, he’ll have his chances, the biggest possibilities are in the stages from here to stage 12.”

Yates is a surprise inclusion for the Tour without a doubt, even the man himself didn’t think he’d be picked and he was training to race the Tour of Poland. But this is an opportunity he is determined to seize as he can gain valuable Grand Tour experience after only having an eight-day race as his longest competiton.

“That’s all part of it, getting a lot of experience in your first Grand Tour,” Yates added. “Hopefully that will bring me out a lot, as well. It’s hard racing, the biggest race all year and hopefully that will bring me out a bit for the future.”

“He’ll get a lot of experience out of this,” White said. “I think he can handle this experience even if it is a big step. He’s already shown to be a winner this year, he’s been a world champion on the track in the past, he knows how to win bike races. He’s been thrown into the deep end, but he’s been handling the pressure and the whole Tour circus very well.”