Tom Pidcock put his frustrations to bed on stage five of the Tour of Britain as the Ineos Grenadiers star picked up crucial bonus seconds in the fight for the overall win.
The Leeds-born rider finished third on the day’s stage won by Jordi Meus of Bora-Hansgrohe meaning he now sits just three seconds away from the race lead of Gonzalo Serrano of Movistar.
Post-stage, Pidcock explained that the racing was now nicely-poised going into the key stage six test through the Cotswold Hills of Gloucestershire and the team had more than rectified their previous mistakes from earlier in the week.
The 23-year-old said: “It was a good day for us and that was the plan to try and pick up some seconds at the finish. Yeah, we were making up for some mistakes and bad days really today.”
In a chaotic finish, a group of riders took a wrong turn as the race neared the finish sparking confusion in the main field. Pidcock had all eyes on the events as they unfolded and explained that the final run into the line wasn’t clear.
He added: “We came in and there was this right hand corner on a massive five, six lane road. We were going to take the shortest line on the right and suddenly there were barriers in the middle. It wasn’t so clear in that respect.”
The climbing on offer throughout stage six presents the perfect opportunity for Ineos Grenadiers as they look to push on and catapult Pidcock into the race lead. He explained to Cycling Weekly that the team still had multiple cards to play in the fight for overall victory with Omar Fraile in third.
After narrowly missing out on a stage win on his home roads, the Ineos rider admitted that tomorrow could be the day to make the difference.
He said: “I think I’m getting better every day now. We want to try and win this race now and tomorrow should be a nice hard day.
“Me and Omar are right there on GC so we’ve got two really good cards. Then of course we’ve got Magnus as well who picked up a few bonus seconds. We’re in a really good position now.”
After the drama of stage four, Pidcock was open in admitting that he and the team were feeling the frustration of what he felt were other teams looking at them to force the action. However, on the flatter stage five into Mansfield multiple teams were involved in proceedings as they looked to tee up their fast men, something that Pidcock welcomed.
“It was nice that other teams came to help. It shows a bit of respect and it’s how cycling works, it was a sprint stage so the sprint teams should work. When everyone else looks at us it gets frustrating, so it was nice to see a bit of collaboration in the group today,” he said.
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