A conservative start costs Trek Factory Racing a higher placing in an otherwise stellar ride in the World’s TTT. The final result is not an accurate reflection of the fluid, strong ride by Trek Factory Racing in the 57.12-kilometer team trial in Ponferrada, Spain, Sunday, won by BMC Racing with a time of 1:03:29.85 (53.967 km/h).

It was a conservative start by the well-oiled pinstripe machine and it cost them. With the favorites starting after Trek Factory Racing they needed to set the fastest splits, but after 23-kilometers they were down on Team Cannondale by 27 seconds.

By the second time split they had the second fastest time, and by the third had clawed into the lead to stop the clock in 1:04:31.32  (53.103 km/h) at the finish and bump Cannondale from the hotseat.

Their time held until Tinkoff-Saxo, then Movistar, pushed them down the standings. When the final teams, the medalists of last year, came across the line Trek Factory Racing claimed 7th place - a good result - but the team agreed they could have eked out more today with a better start.

“I think we did a nice TTT, we did not have too many mistakes, but the biggest thing we did was to start too slow. Everyone delivered and did a nice job. With a TTT everything has to be 100% and we were too slow at the beginning,” Cancellara told the Trek website.

“It’s hard to say, but when you see the split times now it’s crazy when you see how much we gained over the course. At the end we were on the limit so maybe if we went deeper and stronger at the start that would have made the difference. But we did it like this, and we have to live with that,” he finished.

Orica-GreenEdge finished 32 seconds behind BMC Racing to win the silver medal, and the defending champions of the past two years, Omega Pharma-QuickStep, faded in the second part to slip to third (+36”) and take home the bronze.

Trek Factory Racing crossed the finish line with four of the starting six men, testament to the team effort it takes to complete the beautiful but grueling event. Since the time is taken with the fourth finisher many teams’ strategies is to burn up two of the team, who bury themselves in the first part of the race in order to push a faster pace.

The six starters (Fabian Cancellara, Jesse Sergent, Kristof Vandewalle, Markel Irizar, Yaroslav Popovych, Jasper Stuyven) were content with their race, agreeing with the slow start, but that the rest of the time trial was smooth and mistake-free.

“The whole team was really strong, we had a good lead out, perfect job, and everything was smooth. I do think we started too slow. In the end the last 15k we were flying, and there we really could use our power, but maybe for the start we were too slow,” Belgian champion Vandewalle said.

“It’s difficult to know in the first part, because if you go too fast you can pay for it at the end. We knew the end was the hardest part so we had to keep some power. In the beginning I think you had to go with shorter pulls, as we were losing some speed. It was hard to decide, though, what speed to hold, but 13th at the first split shows we were too slow,” Vandewalle said.

“I felt a lot better than in training this week. After the Vuelta I needed some time to open up the legs.  We did not start too fast, and we went full gas in the final 15kms.  We did a good job, and had a good feeling; it was fluent.  We did the same as in the last training and I think we brought that to the race today,” fellow countryman Jasper Stuyven said.

Perhaps the most disappointed was director Josu Larrazabal, who placed the blame for the team's conservative pace at the start directly on the shoulders of the team directors:

“I think we made a mistake from the car – we were not able to understand that the speed was not enough in the beginning; the speed looked good and it was very high but it was a mistake and we were not able to fix it. From that moment we were recovering time, especially in the last part, and the guys fought well. But 26 seconds from the podium, 30 seconds from the second place, is disappointing. We lost between 30-35 seconds we think with our start. There is nothing to do, the race is gone, but this is something we need to improve on for next year.”