Julien Alaphilippe (Desseuninck-Quick-Step) entered a new phase in the Tour de France on stage 12, attacking for his second win, but could only manage 11th place as Marc Hirsch (Team Sunweb) won solo in Salins.

Alaphilippe, aided by teammate Dries Devenyns, attacked from the peloton on the final climb of the Suc-au-May with 27km remaining in the 218km stage, the longest of this Tour. Alaphilippe had a strong group with him, but he was unable to systematically chase Hirschi, who had already attacked on the Côte de la Cruise du Pays earlier in the day.

Alaphilippe made several solo attempts to close the large gap to Hirschi, but his efforts did little to help the chasing group. However, his efforts also did little to help the cooperation of the chasing group. Alaphilippe lost contact with his companions on the final drag to the line and finished 1:48 behind Hirschi.

At the finish, Alaphilippe admitted that he had hoped that the early breakaway group would stay together, and that instead he had a chance for a stage win in Friday's finale at Puy Marie. But when it became clear that Bora-Hansgrohe's pacemakers would not let the peloton off the early moves, Alaphilippe began to formulate an attack plan.

"My priority was to do well in tomorrow's stage, but today I was fast thanks to Bora. 'Thanks to Dries [Devenyns] and Bob [Jungels] I was able to open up a bit of a gap. After that I tried in my own way, but it was complicated."

There were two complicating factors. Hirschi was already second behind Alaphilippe on stage 2 in Nice and third on stage 9 in Larence. On the summit of the Sûc-aux-May, he further extended his advantage by more than 30 seconds over the rest of the field. [Alaphilippe said of Hirschi's first professional victory, "Congratulations to him. We gave our maximum effort, but it wasn't easy." But in the end Hirschi came out ahead and didn't question himself"

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"It's frustrating, but we did our maximum and Hirschi was the strongest today. I have no regrets."

Alaphilippe waited to go on the attack in the steepest section of the Sac O May and gave a nihilistic answer when asked if he should have gone on the attack earlier to catch the Swiss.

"You need to make an effort at the right time. I did my best on the climb. It wasn't too late, but it was really the last moment.

The Frenchman said that he was separated from the rest of the group in the last few kilometers and that it initially looked like he had mechanical trouble, but later said that was not the case.

"I was under the impression that the bike had stopped moving forward, but I was the one who stopped moving forward," he joked.

Since dropping out of overall contention on the first day of the Pyrenees, Alaphilippe has been content to drop back a few minutes in the standings in hopes of being given the freedom to attack later in the Tour. He is now nearly an hour away from the yellow jersey of Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma).

"Tomorrow we have four more mountain stages with difficult profiles. That may eventually be my goal, but right now my priority is to stay motivated and fresh for the second half of the Tour."