What gives me hope is that Froome showed this great performance, yesterday, in one of the hardest (regarding race profile) one-day pro races of the whole calendar. This race, in the past, was ridden (at this time if the year, in this part of the map) as the „Classique des Alpes“. Only the very best climbers, in very good shape, had the chance to achieve Top-20 there. And that was also the case yesterday.
Indeed, young Lenny Martinez finished in front of Froome. But FdJ‘s Lenny Martinez and Romain Gregoire, both aged 18/19, are two incredibly talented and strong climbers, they are Barguil/Martin/Pinot/Gaudu/Rolland 2.0, and soon probably will be ranked among the very best climbers in every mountainous race they participate in.
I‘d honestly say, in the past, if a TdF GC contender, who went for Yellow in Paris, finished in 11th place, not even four minutes down, in the Classique des Alpes, he normally was perfectly on track for the Tour.
Yesterday‘s race also was an absolutely honest race. More than 4700 vertical meters. Uphill most of the day. To win it, you needed to be top world class (just like Fuglsang is), and to finish 3:56 mins down (Froome), you had to be at least bottom world class, and to have really good legs on race day.