What should have been a relatively easy day sandwiched in between the second rest day and the individual time trial evolved into a minor disaster for Astana team leader Jakob Fuglsang on Tuesday’s stage in the Tour de France.

As Katusha launched an offensive on the last ascent of the day, Fuglsang was caught out and couldn’t respond to the attack. A wrong decision as the peloton negotiated a roundabout proved fatal as Fuglsang lost a minute to some of his main rivals and lost a place in the overall standings.

“I simply chose the wrong way around the roundabout as the peloton climbed the last ascent,” Fuglsang told Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. “I was sitting on Cadel Evans’ wheel. It turned out that we went the wrong way and I dropped about 100 places in the bunch and I tried to rectify that mistake at the beginning of the ascent. As a consequence I was slightly out of breath as Katusha suddenly launched their attack and I failed to stay with them.”

Fuglsang acknowledged that he hadn’t expected the GC contenders to ride as aggressively as they did.

“I hadn’t anticipated such an offensive on the final climb. I suppose they [the GC contenders] wanted to test each other after the rest day,” Fuglsang said.

Going into Wednesday’s individual time trial, Fuglsang is in 8th position overall, trailing Chris Froome by 07’22”.