Romain Bardet (Team DSM) admitted to having deja vu at the Giro d'Italia. In the blockhouse on Sunday, as he did on Mount Etna earlier in the week, he settled in behind Richard Karapas and watched as the Ineos Grenadiers riders left one by one in front of him.

"It really seems like we are back in 2016, 2017, 2018," Bardet noted at the rest day press conference.

The Frenchman was referring to the Tour de France at the time, which had two podium finishes in Paris but grew frustrated with the way the British team (then known as Sky) dominated the event with an ultra-domestic group of riders in the mountains.

It was also to escape the controlled environment of the Tour de France that Bardet began targeting the Giro d'Italia in the last few years after joining DSM. Meanwhile, the Ineos Grenadiers seemed to have abandoned their former suffocating approach in recent years in favor of more aggressive and creative tactics.

But so far in this Giro, the British team has dictated the tempo in both summit finishes, as Pavel Sivakov and Richie Porte have shown remarkable turns.

"They are building a mountain lead-out train. Bardet said, "They are making the lead-out train in the mountains. They will want to keep the race under control, but they actually have the strength to control the race, and I think they will be rewarded for their efforts so far in the third week."

"So for me, it's very similar to my experience a few years ago.

So far, Bardet has equalled Ineos' leader every time he pedals, and in fact, thanks to his advantage in the time trial of the second stage, he is in front of him.

Ineos' work in Etna faded into a group finish, but in Brockhaus, Carapas attacked 4.6km from the summit. Bardet challenged it head-on and split the pack again at 2km from the summit, with Bardet, Calapaz, and Mikel Landa emerging as the strongest three.

"It was a pretty big attack. It was a sudden change of pace," Bardet said of Calapaz's move. 'It was pretty much all-out effort. It was still a long way to the top, but we were able to make a difference there. Landa was also super strong. We proved that we are the best three."

Bardet noted that there was no great reward as a small group including Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) came back at the end and Bardet's former teammate Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) held him off for the stage win. However, many of the pre-race favorites for the win, including Simon Yates, Wilco Kelderman, and Hugh Kersee, had already seen their challenges crumble as they moved down the mountain.

"It was the first really hard stage in the Giro. The stage before that was very tough, so it was really nice to be up there with the best guys. I didn't make a big time difference but it was good to be in the top group.

"I feel good. Everything is going well so far. I'm still halfway through the Giro, but I'm off to a really good start."

Bardet is in third place overall, 14 seconds behind race leader Juan Pedro Lopez, two seconds behind pre-race favorite Joao Almeida, and one second behind Calapaz.

He refused to explicitly state that he was aiming for Maria Rosa or the podium, preferring instead to focus on "performing and seeing what happens." When one reporter noted that he seemed "liberated," he attributed it to "maturity."

"I went through a lot of stress in the Grand Tour, and I experienced great disappointment.

Bardet looked ahead to the second week, which obviously had no important stages and no major mountains until the weekend, but he recognized many potential pitfalls. In response to Ineos' presence in the mountains, which he alluded to in his earlier comments, he feels that the race has much richer potential than the Tour once did.

"It's quite different, to be honest. It's quite different, to be honest. I feel that the teams have less control over the race than in the Tour. It's really open, and after nine days, the GC standings are still very close. No one is dominating the race."

Bardet, who has been in the GC wilderness for several years after his Tour de France podium, may leave his mark.