auscyclefan94 said:Yes way. Look if Cadel had some help chasing down Sastre he would of not lost 2:10 at Alpe d huez and effectively would of won the tour that year. Also with his bad crash on hte descent on the peyresuode which he was badly bruised all on one side.
In 2007 Alberto Contador and Levi leipheimer and Yaroslav Popovich were able to work as a three pronged attack against Cadel and so Alberto could launch attacks against Cadel and if he got brought AC back then Levi could attack or be there for Contador to give him a break. Multiple attacks from Contador was always going to be hard to get back if you have no help to work in numbers and chase.
Well actually he would've needed a very good team-mate to do chase on Al d'Huez and even that wouldn't have probably helped him much. On a hill like that you don't really benefit from the draft - at least not 58 secs he would've needed on Sastre. So no matter who Evans would've had on Alpe d'Huez he wouldn't have been able to chase down Sastre without dropping Cadel. The crash: how do teammates help you not to crash? They can help you get back to the pack and protect you in a pack but they can't really make you 100% "crash-proof".
In 2007 if I recall correctly it was mainly the attacks of Rasmussen and Contador that dropped Evans, not Leipheimer's attacks. Evans, and no one else for the matter, simply couldn't follow the accelerations of the two.