HAUTACAM, France: Tadej Pogacar said he was in the form of his life after climbing to a commanding Tour de France stage win on the Hautacam mountain in the Pyrenees on Thursday.
The three-time Tour winner punished his key rival Jonas Vingegaard on stage 12 as he left him trying to limit the damage on the first major mountain on the 21-day race.
Team UAE leader Pogacar skipped away on an 11km solo ascent to finish two minutes and 10 seconds ahead of Vingegaard, who refrained from trying to follow the blistering attack.
Overnight leader Ben Healy of Ireland meanwhile wilted to a 13min deficit on the day.
French President Emmanuel Macron was on hand at the mountaintop finish, shaking his head in admiration as the 26-year-old shot across the line. Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel was also left trying to limit his losses, finishing 3min 35sec down in seventh on the 180.6km ride from Auch.
In the overall standings Pogacar now leads by 3min 31sec over Visma rider Vingegaard while Evenepoel is third at a daunting 4min 45sec.
Pogacar admitted after the race that until now he’s been cranky, complaining about attacks, the heat and tiredness.
But he offered a different story in the Pyrenees.
“I could see that Visma weren’t feeling so well,” he said.
“On the last climb it was really hot but I was really feeling good,” he said, explaining how he shattered the 12-man group still clinging on at the foot of the final climb.
He also offered a broader explanation.
“This is the best moment of my career. It’s been like a fairytale,” he said of the stage win on a mountain where he had previously been beaten.
“I enjoy this sufferfest,” he said of the long climb days. “I’m at the peak of my career. Once this fire goes out, my performance will drop.”
Pogacar admitted at the finish line his team had been secretly targeting this stage for some time.
“The plan was to win this stage,” he said. “I’m super happy to take time and win on this particular climb,” said Pogacar, who fell heavily on stage 11.
“You don’t know how your body reacts after a crash. It wasn’t so bad. The team did a super job.”
The champion had kind words for Irishman Healy, who had a bruising day himself.
“Healy tried, he showed big spirit. It was hard for everybody today,” said Pogacar.
He also dedicated this win to Italian junior cyclist Samuele Privitera who died aged 19 following a fall at this week’s Tour of the Aoste Valley-Mont Blanc.
“I was thinking of him in the final kilometer. This sport can be so hard. It’s so sad,” Pogacar said.
Friday’s stage 13 could shake up the standings again as it is an unforgiving individual time trial, mainly uphill, that the Slovenian has been looking forward to.
“The race isn’t over, just look at the next few stages and then there’s next week too,” he said.
Pogacar also took over the polka dot king of the mountain jersey while Jonathan Milan has the green sprint jersey and Evenepoel the white jersey as the best young rider.
Healy described his time in yellow as a “whirlwind” after dropping to 11th, over 13min off the pace.
There were three mountains on the menu Thursday as the peloton entered the Pyrenees. The pack was whittled down before Pogacar’s astonishing attack on the fabled Hautacam, a 13.6km ascent at 7.8 percent gradient.
On Friday a 10.9km race up the Peyragudes mountain rescue airfield with slopes of up to 16 percent await some potentially tired legs with the temperature set to hit around 33 degrees Celsius (92 Fahrenheit).
Pogacar retakes Tour de France lead in crushing mountain win
https://arab.news/7nt4g
Pogacar retakes Tour de France lead in crushing mountain win
- Team UAE leader Pogacar skipped away on an 11km solo ascent to finish two minutes and 10 seconds ahead of Vingegaard, who refrained from trying to follow the blistering attack
- French President Emmanuel Macron was on hand at the mountaintop finish, shaking his head in admiration as the 26-year-old shot across the lin
- Friday’s stage 13 could shake up the standings again as it is an unforgiving individual time trial, mainly uphill, that the Slovenian has been looking forward to
‘Papaya’s not going anywhere’: How McLaren banished the wilderness years on and off the track
- On-track success of 2 constructors’ championships and Lando Norris’s title win matched by a rebrand attracting a new generation of fans to the British F1 team
ABU DHABI: It’s been just over a week since Lando Norris claimed his first Formula One championship title, but for McLaren’s growing army of supporters the party continues.
When the British driver crossed the finish line at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit in third place to confirm his title victory, you could be forgiven for thinking the post-race celebrations had a familiar look to others in recent years at the season-closing Grand Prix in the UAE’s capital.
This time however, the celebrating fans were sporting the orange of McLaren’s distinctive “papaya” livery, rather than the orange of Max Verstappen’s native Netherlands.
The resurgence of the British team in recent years has been nothing short of remarkable. On the track, their overwhelming supremacy has been secured by a superior car and two gifted drivers in Norris and Australia’s Oscar Piastri. Off it, they deployed one of motor sport’s most successful rebranding campaigns, as a result of which McLaren’s main color now rivals Ferrari’s red as the most iconic in F1.
“You know, it was the fans’ choice to bring papaya back,” Matt Dennington, co-chief commercial officer at McLaren, told Arab News.
“Back in, I think it was 2016, we went out to our fans and it was an overwhelming ‘yes’ that they wanted to see our heritage come back into the team. It’s a key brand asset for us.”
Speaking during a “Live Your Fandom” event at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, co-hosted with Velo, a team sponsor since 2019, he said: “For us, the fans are the lifeblood of our sport. We don’t go racing without them, and to be able to celebrate our fans and our partners together has been awesome.”
Norris’s success in Abu Dhabi was a crowning moment for the team, but the development on the track has been clear and dramatic for several years.
In 2017, the team finished a lowly ninth out of 10 in the constructors’ championship. Improvements to the car, particularly after switching to a Mercedes engine, helped the team move up to become a fixture in the “mid-field” F1 grid. Then, in 2024, came the giant leap forward as McLaren won the team title and then retained it this year.
In tandem with those successes, the commercial work that has taken place off the track has helped McLaren, in large part thanks to return of its papaya colors, develop one of the strongest brand identities in all of sports.
“Obviously, the on-track performance has been a great boost for that,” Dennington said. “You know, the other areas that have helped progress our fandom, and the sport, is the work that Liberty Media have done in the schedule.”
Liberty, an American mass media company, acquired Formula One Group from CVC Partners in 2017 for $4.4 billion. The popularity of the sport has skyrocketed since then thanks to huge engagement across media channels — including a certain Netflix show.
“More races, more races in the US, ‘Drive to Survive’ (on Netflix, and) we had the F1 movie,” Dennington said. “So there’s some great media platforms really driving the audience growth and the diversity of the audience.
“As a team, we’ve been pushing ourselves to be more sophisticated in the way in which we engage and communicate with our teams, but also looking at the partners we work with to give our fans the access to the McLaren brand and access to racing culture.”
The team’s portfolio now boasts more than 50 sponsors, among them Google, Mastercard and British American Tobacco. Dennington highlighted a number of campaigns that caught the public’s imagination.
“Some good examples of that is the work that we’ve done with Reiss and Abercrombie & Fitch — we bought our first women’s line of fashion through those organizations; the work we’re doing with Lego in capturing those sort of youth consumers into the brand; and also the work we’ve done with Tumi over the last few years in the luggage category.
“So we’re trying to extend the brand, we’re trying to create more access.”
In August, McLaren and Velo launched the “Live Your Fandom” campaign, offering nine superfans from the UK, Romania, the Czech Republic, Mexico and other places a “golden ticket” F1 experience in the form of a full day at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England.
The chosen fans enjoyed a behind-the-scenes tour, shared their memories of the team directly with McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, and took part in a surprise Q&A session with Norris.
One high-profile result of their special day was the graphical contributions they made to the team’s 2025 Abu Dhabi livery design, unveiled just days before Norris claimed the title, which featured art they helped create inspired by their most defining McLaren moments.
The livery features a series of bespoke images, including the “Papaya Family” representing the community spirit among McLaren F1 fans around the world; a “Forever Forward” friendship bracelet; and “Home Wins,” symbolizing the team’s victories this season in its home country at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, and at the Bahrain Grand Prix, which is considered the team’s second home.
Other images celebrated the back-to-back constructors’ championship victories; 200 race wins; 50 top-two race finishes; and the fastest pitstop of the 2025 season (1.91 seconds).
Louise McEwen, McLaren Racing’s chief marketing officer, said: “Our fans are at the heart of everything we do, and this special livery is another way of showing our appreciation.
“Through the ‘Live Your Fandom’ campaign with Velo we’ve been able to celebrate their passion and creativity in a way that truly brings the Papaya Family together.”
Such efforts by McLaren to bring more fans even closer to the action will continue, Dennington said.
“Less than 1 percent of all fans in Formula One over their lifetime get to go to a race,” he added. “So I think it’s up to us as a sport, as teams, to be able to create more opportunities for them (and) to connect with our fans.”
As for the image and identity of the team moving forward, he had a reassuring message for fans: “Papaya’s not going anywhere and you’ll continue to see that into the future.”
