Sean Yates, former director of Team Sky, questioned his former team's Tour de France (open in new tab) tactics, telling L'Equipe that Ineos Grenadier (open in new tab) sometimes "wasted energy" during races He said that he had replaced the late Nicolas Portal and questioned the shared system of directors, the core group of the team.

Yates led Bradley Wiggins to Britain's first Tour de France title as part of the management team while racing under the Sky banner from 2010 to 2012. He was particularly critical of defending champion Egan Bernal (open in new tab) on stage 13, when he was more than 0.5 minutes behind race leaders Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar. Bernal is now in third place overall, 59 seconds behind Roglic's lead, but on stage 13, Ineos increased his pace on the final climb, causing Bernal to stall.

"It's a strange strategy," Yates said, according to L'Equipe.

According to Yates, his former team was used to running with one tactic and struggled to devise a new strategy.

"I think they're so used to imposing their way of racing on others that they have a hard time doing anything different. It's hard to adapt when you're winning so much. For example, when a team has three leaders, as they did last year, it is a logical tactic to make the race harder in order to undermine their rivals.

"But Ineos went into this Tour with one leader. It is better to stay in the wheel rather than waste energy."

The bottom line, however, is that Bernal is not yet in a position to dominate the Tour as he did in the final few stages of 2019. He looked better than he did a few weeks ago in the Criterium du Dauphiné, and even told reporters at the end of stage 13 that his numbers on the final climb rivaled some of his best. However, the defending champion came up short when Roglic and Pogacar showed aggressive riding, and Yates also questioned the team's training program in relation to Bernal's lockdown time in Colombia.

"Ineos went into the Tour thinking Bernal was the best rider in the peloton. Setting the tempo works when you have the best riders. The higher the pace, the bigger gap he can create in the finale. But so far, the best rider is Primoz Roglic. He is flying

"The overall level is rising. Climbing records are being broken in each stage, and it is clear that Bernal is not following that trend. He is asking himself how the Colombian blockade has affected him and the quality of his training. We know that he ran almost 300 km on several occasions without a solid base. I don't think all of that was beneficial for him. I have my doubts about his preparation."

Of course, Ineos went into this year's race without Nicolas Portal. The French rider died tragically earlier this year, and the British team declined to find a direct replacement before the end of the year. Instead, Dave Brailsford decided to extend Portal's former duties within the existing management structure. According to Yates, that approach may look good on paper, but it does not work well in a race where immediate decisions need to be made.

"I don't know if that's enough to explain the current tactical problems, but Nico embodied the success of Ineos and with success comes confidence. His death came as a great shock to the riders. He had been pulling the strings for years.

"Right now there are four directors and I'm not sure who is calling the shots. It's a pretty fluid situation. In a race, everything has to be handled in an automatic way. Once the stage started, there was no time for video conferencing and deciding on tactics. In the past, if there was a hole in the boat, Nico would fix it. But in cycling, like in life, nothing lasts forever."