Bahrain McLaren took the lead on the queen stage of the Tour de France, but went home empty-handed.

Jumbo Visma, with race leader Primoš Roglic, was expected to dictate the tempo on stage 17, the Madeleine pass and the final pass, the Roset.

Landa did not intend to attack until the Madeleine, but wanted to set a strong pace until the brutally steep 4km bike path at the summit of the Roset. However, with 3.7 km to go, Landa finished in seventh place, moving away from the podium.

Team boss Rod Ellingworth told Cycling News that despite the questionable tactics, i.e., whether they were unnecessarily playing a role that Jumbo Visma should have played anyway, he had no regrets about this battle plan.

"We did it. We all wanted to do it, and Mikel wanted to do it. We could have sat there and the result would have been the same," Ellingworth said. [Everyone wanted to give it a go, and each and every one of us did our part. Fair play to Mikel, he and the coaches put it together, it was a 10-point effort. But I closed the gap with Rigoberto [Uran] a little bit.

The work began in Madeleine, where punthure-sprinter Sonny Colbrelli made the big first turn before Wout Poels took the lead. Matej Mohoric led the descent and then the final climb through the valley. Damiano Caruso was one of Landa's last on the steep hill of the bike path and stayed in front until 4 km to go.

However, the first turn of the other team (David de la Cruz of UAE Team Emirates) caused the yellow jersey group to collapse and Landa fell. He finished in 7th place, 1:20 behind stage winner Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana).

"Mikel did not want an easy pace in the Madeleine. He was confident that Jumbo Visma would not mind the break. We wanted more than tempo. I don't think we could have done any better. Everyone played to their true potential. It just depended on the legs," Ellingworth explained.

"[Landa] rode at his own pace and once the gap started to open up, he knew that if he went too deep on that climb, he would fall far behind. So I think he obviously kept his pace. I think he has to be happy with his run. It didn't work out that way for us, but it was certainly a bloody good effort."

Ellingworth's thoughts were shared by the players who spent their days whipping for Landa. You never know unless you try," Caruso said. We gave it our all, and we have no regrets."

Bilbao added: "We were patient. We were patient and waited for the right moment." With the Jumbo team it was really difficult to try anything on the other stages. The last 6km were so hard and the altitude so high that the team didn't matter at that point.

"It took everything the team had and everyone gave their maximum effort. The result was not what we expected, but I can't ask for more from the team. Mikel was in good shape. He always gets good results in the third week, so we wanted to start from the beginning anyway. But the Tour is the Tour and there are a lot of strong competitors."

Landa remains in seventh place overall, but the gap to the race leader has widened from 2:16 to 3:27. In the battle for the podium, Uran was the only one to improve his time, as stage winner Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) moved up to third overall, moving from 42 seconds off the podium to 2:01.

The final standings will be determined by the time trial the day before, but before that, there is a stage where riders like Landa can make one more push in this Tour, as Thursday's stage 18 will be a series of climbs and descents.

"I'm also looking for a surprise tomorrow," Bilbao said. ." said Bilbao.