'We've had Primož Roglič under control' - Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe set for Tour de France podium despite questionable tactics

The 2025 Tour de France started with Primož Roglič repeatedly insisting that “I don’t really care.” It ends with the Tour de France asking: what has Primož Roglič been playing at?

Notably weary of seemingly everything and potentially readying his exit from both Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe and the sport, the 35-year-old still kept himself in the hunt for the third and final podium spot after decent performances in the Pyrenees. And then after Mont Ventoux stage on stage 16, he moved himself up to fifth overall, just 2:39 seconds off a podium spot. Not bad for a man who apparently wasn’t really bothered.

The man in third, however, was his teammate Florian Lipowitz. Usually what would happen in such a scenario is that the older pro with five Grand Tour titles on his palmarès (Roglič) would park his own ambitions and help the younger pro (Lipowitz) to a podium finish in his maiden Tour de France.

But Roglič, 11 years Lipowitz’s senior, has shown little desire to do that. After first giving less-than-convincing answers to the question if he would support Lipowitz – “for sure we will do our best with the team,” he said after stage 13 – the Slovenian then went on the attack during the final two mountain days in the Alps.

On stage 18, the race’s queen stage, he attacked at the foot of the first climb, and after Lipowitz then made a suicide move in the valley before the final ascent, Roglič opted against going back to support the 24-year-old German, and finished 53 seconds ahead of Lipowitz.

Twenty-four hours later, and with Lipowitz’s third-place and white jersey under serious threat from Picnic PostNL’s Oscar Onley, Roglič again raised eyebrows by going up the road on the climbs of Col du Pre and Cormet de Roselend. When he was eventually caught by the leading group, of which Lipowitz was part of, Roglič went backwards, finishing the day more than 12 minutes behind winner Thymen Arensman, and slipping from fifth to eighth.

Lipowitz all but secured third after distancing Onley in the closing stages – a significant result for the Tour debutant – but the post-race intrigue was centred entirely on Roglič. Have Red Bull been able to control him this Tour? “I have to say yes,” answered the team’s sports director Enrico Gasparotto.

“Primož is a champion. He has his own opinion a lot of the time about many things and he has his own big experience which I respect. We did talk about what to do and how to do it, but I also know and he knows that Primož is 35-years-old.

“Back to your question: yes, I think I have had Primož under control. The last two days Primož put winning a stage as a priority and to fight for it. For him, finishing fourth, sixth or seventh in GC, it doesn’t change his life, but he wanted to win something here in this Tour de France, to say I am getting to Paris and I’ve won a stage, which is understandable, really understandable. To answer your question with one word: yes.”

Expanding on the tactics of his team’s co-leaders in the past two stages, Gasparotto defended Roglič’s wishes to chase stage glory, and admitted that Lipowitz had been naive by attacking in the valley before the climb to Col de la Loze on stage 18.

“Lipowitz is a super young rider, super motivated, as you could also see in the first part of the Tour de France when a couple of times he moved based on instinct and emotions,” Gasparotto continued. “That’s also what happened yesterday and he paid the price big time.

“I reviewed all of yesterday’s stage 100 times last night. I still do think that normally I plan tactics quite well but yesterday was a good f**k up. We cannot say it wasn’t because we lost a lot in the last three kilometres. But at the top of the Madeleine we had 2:30 on Onley and Lipowitz was 35 seconds behind Primož who was in the first group.

“At the end of this descent, they slowed down. If they didn’t slow down, and Primož went with the yellow jersey to the finish, maybe he finishes third on the podium and Lipo gets back with Onley, stays on his wheel, finishes fourth [on GC] and with the white jersey. But it didn’t happen because they completely stopped.

“What surprised us was the attack of Lipo which was never planned, but what happened after the attack of Lipo? In 30 seconds he got two minutes on the yellow jersey and 4:30 to Onley, five minutes to Onley. At one point we were three minutes to yellow and five to Onley. What do you do? You cannot stop him and that’s why it was like it was.”

The pre-race meetings ahead of stage 19 were all about controlling Lipowitz, not Roglič. “Obviously that was all in the discussion this morning, trying to explain to him [Lipowitz] what happens in Grand Tours in the third week and so on and so forth, and today I think he learned a lesson and I am happy about that,” Gasparotto continued.

“I think the faster the young kids learn, the better they are, and the earlier they get success, and Lipo deserves that because he’s such a strong rider that there’s no doubt about it.

In the end, Red Bull look set to achieve their pre-race goal: a top-three finish, and with the added bonus of winning the young riders' classification. “We came here to aim for a podium and if we finish it off then it’s mission complete,” Gasparotto said. Lipowitz allowed himself a quick glance at the finish line, too. “It’s incredible what's happening this summer for me,” he smiled.

But whether or not Roglič is truly content that it will be his teammate and not him alongside Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard on the podium in Paris will depend on how you view his racing of the past week. When he rolled back to his team’s bus in the soaking rain at the top of La Plagne, he met his family, smiled, chatted with them, but refused to speak to the media. The probable answer to his mysterious ways is what he’s been saying all along: he doesn’t really care.