Not bad on our part but Froome was impressive

When Froome, Porte and Alberto attacked with 8km to go, you lost contact. Were you suffering a crisis? They were simply too fast for me and I knew I´d be better off waiting for that strong group riding behind me. I could take a breather in the slipstream. Ten Dam was the rider in charge of pulling that group, Fuglsang at times would  give him a hand. I recovered a bit and then I felt good again. Only when Rodriguez darted away I just couldn’t follow, but I think it wasn’t bad. Mollema was clearly suffering big time and you managed to gain six seconds on him… At places he struggled to stay with us in that group. I wasn’t interested in pulling that group because Alberto was up front and it wouldn’t have made any sense to chase him down. At the end, Alberto was running out of gas but the time gaps are still very small. Anyway, it is good to know that Mollema wasn’t so strong but we all are at the pretty much same level. On top of that, Quintana seems to be moving up in the GC. What do you think of Froom´s performance? He was obviously the best of all. What he showed today was impressive. He rode like a motorbike. Hats off to him. I knew that you cannot be on your own when riding out of the tree line on this hill but Froome clearly didn’t mind. He succeeded in widening his gap on you two. I´m still convinced that anything can happen until we reach Paris. The time trial and the two really tough stages will be crucial. Tomorrow we will have to take a rest and with the team we will discuss the game plan for the final week of racing. Is it still true that you primary task is to ride in support of Alberto? Definitely. Alberto was the only one from our team who stayed up front, he is a great leader. From a tactical standpoint , it is a not bad to have two riders in top five.