With the Pyrenees stage starting on Saturday's stage 8 and the Alps still to come, Trek-Segafredo's Richie Porte and Bauke Mollema are not yet beaten in the Tour de France, but both riders are 1: the result of a crosswind on Friday's stage 7, The 1:21 losses to potential winners such as Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma), Grupama-FDJ's Thibaut Pinot, and defending champion Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) have undoubtedly made their task more difficult.

After the breakaway that occurred around 40 km from the finish on the 168-km stage linking Ineos, Jambovisma, Astana, and Bora Hansgrohe between Millau and Lavol, Porte and Mollema were joined by Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) and Mikel Landa (Bahrain McLaren), along with other big names including Taddei Pogakar (UAE Team Emirates) and Mikel Landa (Bahrain McLaren), initially worked to close the gap and later settled for simply limiting their losses.

Morema and Porte are now 18th and 20th respectively, 1:34 behind race leader Adam Yates (Mitchelton Scott).

"It's not ideal to be caught up, but considering the next two weeks, it's far from a disaster," Porte said on the team's Twitter feed Friday evening.

"Of course, we don't want that to happen, but in the next couple of days we can focus more on our terrain," said the Australian, whose climbing will begin in earnest this weekend.

"It was a moment. It was fast, there were two roundabouts, and then it split into five right in front of us," added Morema, elaborating a bit more on what happened." When you have Echelon, there is not much more you can do.

"In the end, Richie and I were lucky that the other teams made mistakes too, and (teammate) Toms Skuzins helped us a lot.

"I think we made a mistake by dropping back too far with 30 or 35 kilometers to go. I think my legs were fine, and you shouldn't lose time on a stage like this," Morema admitted.

Indeed, the strength of Ineos Grenadier and this year's Jumbo Visma at least helped ensure their leader was in the right place at the right time.

In the past, Team Sky, more recently Team Ineos, and now as Ineos Grenadiers, the British WorldTour team tends to race close to the front, even on non-climbing stages such as Friday's stage 7.

Jumbo Visma is also clearly following suit, ensuring that Roglic and Tom Dumoulin will be near the front of the race throughout most of the opening week of racing.

"Tomorrow [Saturday], we're hoping to get a little bit of snow on the ground. And now that we're not that close on GC, hopefully we'll have a little more room on the next stage," Porte said."