It's number four – that's an incredible amount of Tour de France finishes. To just win it in one Tour, I can't believe it. I'm so happy. It's super nice. The team worked again so hard.
I think I had a pretty good spot because it was still relatively far with 500 metres to go at the last left corner. I saw that McLay started to sprint very early to come to the front, and that was my lead-out. From then on, I hit the front at 220 and I think it's no surprise that I feel really good at the moment in the sprint.
[On having the German record of Tour stage wins] Of course it means something for me. I don't know – I won now so many stages in the Tour. I never expected it when I was starting my career, I never really expected to be in the Tour. I was hoping maybe at one point to become a professional, but that I would be at this level with these wins, it's hard for me to imagine. I feel like I'm living in a small little bubble in a small little world that isn't really true.
I was in really good position, we had Roelandts coming in front of us into the final straight and it was Marco [Haller] in front of me. When it came to the final straight, Roelandts took a bad corner unfortunately, and we had to brake quite a lot.
I don't know how the other guys in front could take the corner but at least me and Marco had to brake quite a lot. And then we accelerated all the way from there. But at 200 metres the other guys overtook us at like double speed. At the end I managed to get to the same speed but then it was too late.
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I don't know where they built up all that speed but maybe if we'd come onto the final straight with a higher speed, then maybe that was the trick today, because I felt actually really good in the sprint and we came in good position, so that I lost so bad was a surprise.
We always tried to stay in a good position. in the end it was super hectic, very nervous. When I was going in the last kilometre, I thought the sprint was already over, but then a miracle happened and Marcel overtook me. I did a full sprint to stay on his slipstream and that took me to second place.
Today [Kittel] was unbeatable, that's for sure. But at the Tour anything can happen.
It's nice after a rest day for things to not be so crazy again. Nice stages to tick off now. I guess, just regain a bit of energy before we hit the Pyrenees.
Tomorrow should be another sprint day. Everyone's waiting to see what the weather's going to be like tomorrow. That could play a part. Otherwise it should be a straightforward sprint day before we hit the Pyrenees the day afterwards.
The race is still very close, very open, and there is a lot of racing to come.
