It's often a tough task to tell at a glance which teams are doing well at the Tour de France, there are 22 of them going around France, each with their own objectives and strengths.
So borrowing a tool from other sports, Cycling Central will run a Power Rankings during this Tour de France. It's a quick guide from stage to stage of which teams are excelling and which are unlucky or faring poorly.
1. Quick-Step Floors (no change)
A very active performance from the Quick-Step Floors squad who clearly have ambitions to put Julian Alaphillipe in the Yellow Jersey in the next stage. Phillipe Gilbert did everything within his power to distance the field with a bold early attack on the rise up to the finish line, but couldn't quite pull it off.
Both he and Alaphillipe will be up for the finish up Mur de Bretagne.
Best Results: 1st - Fernando Gaviria - Stage 1+4, 3rd - Phillipe Gilbert - Stage 5, 3rd Team Time Trial, 1 day in Yellow.
2. BORA-hansgrohe (no change)
It's hard to appreciate just how good Peter Sagan is, noone else in the peloton can go from winning flat sprints one day to hard uphill slogs the next.
His win in Quimper gives him a nice little cushion of 33 points in the Green Jersey battle over Gaviria and he'll be confident of equalling Erik Zabel's record of 6 sprint classification victories by the end of the Tour.
Best Results: 1st - Peter Sagan - Stage 2+5, 2nd - Peter Sagan - Stage 1+4, 1 day in Yellow.
3. BMC (no change)
BMC are using quite a bit of energy to protect the leader's jersey, something that may come back to bite them in the future. For the moment it's a feather in their cap and a symptom of the success they've enjoyed so far this race.
Van Avermaet was active during Stage 6, taking some bonus seconds at the bonus sprint and then looking lively at the finish. He did mess up the final sprint a bit, effectively providing the perfect lead-out for Sagan and Colbrelli.
Best Result: 1st - Team Time Trial, Yellow Jersey, 2nd GC - Tejay van Garderen
4. Team Sky (no change)
It was an impressive showing by the British squad. They went to the front in the final kilometres and put down the hammer, spreading out the bunch and making sure their leaders went into the final climb to the line with little to no chance of being gapped and losing time on the stage.
Best Results: 2nd - Team Time Trial, 3rd GC - Geraint Thomas
5. Bahrain Merida (up four positions)
Bahrain Merida were very prominent in the finale, right near the front of the race when they needed to be. Colbrelli did his best, and is unlucky enough to be competing against one of the best cyclists of his generation, otherwise he'd have a pair of stage wins to his name.
Nibali was also close to the front in the finish, he'll be more suited by the Mur de Bretagne and while he won't be the favourite, he may surprise a few of his rivals.
Best Results: 2nd - Sonny Colbrelli - Stage 2+5
6. Mitchelton-Scott (up one position)
Another solid day for the Australian team. Adam Yates barely touched the wind and the team didn't have to use up many resources. Mikel Nieve was caught up in a crash, hopefully he isn't badly hurt as he is a key lieutenant for Yates in the mountains.
Best Results: 5th - Team Time Trial, 16th GC - Adam Yates
7. Wanty-Groupe Gobert (down one position)
The Belgian squad is proving to be more than a novelty at the Tour, they have been very active and quite successful so far this race.
Dion Smith has to surrender his polka dot jersey for the moment, but they were active in the finish and added another top 10 finish to the swag of them they have already. The one lowlight has been Guillame Martin falling off the pace in the general classification, but it should allow the young Frenchman to go for stage success in the mountains.
Best Results: 3 days in KOM jersey - Dion Smith
8. Team Sunweb (down three postions)
Team Sunweb was set back before they turned a pedal in anger on Stage 5. Michael Matthews bowing out of the race with a virus is really bad news for the squad, not only does it take a potential stage-winner out of the team, but one of its strongest options for supporting Dumoulin.
The good news is that there's no evidence of the virus spreading within the squad... something like that could really derail a team for the entire Tour.
Best Results: 7th - Michael Matthews - Stage 1, 7th GC - Tom Dumoulin
9. EF Education First-Drapac (down one position)
Not sighted much during the stage, but they did their job and kept Rigoberto Uran from giving away time.
Best Results: 9th GC - Rigoberto Uran
10. Trek-Segafredo (up three positions)
It was a good call to get Tom Skuijns out in the break to have a go at the mountains jersey, it's given them a bit of a goal to keep fighting for in the race with John Degenkolb and the sprint train not getting a great deal accomplished so far.
Mollema is their main man once the race hits the mountains.
Best Results: KOM jersey - Tom Skuijns
11. Movistar (same)
It was almost the right sort of finish for Alejandro Valverde yesterday and he looked likely with a late surge to take fourth on the stage. He'll be very keen to do better on the Mur de Bretagne and it should be a great chance for Movistar to get their first stage win of the race.
Best Result: 4th - Alejandro Valverde - Stage 5
12. Astana (down two positions)
They've got Jakob Fuglsang sitting in a handy spot on the general classification, but you'd be forgiven for not knowing anyone else in the squad was at the race with the way they've been hiding themselves so far.
Best Result: 9th - Jakob Fuglsang - Stage 1
13. Katusha-Alpecin (down one position)
Ilnur Zakarin fared a lot better than the previous stage, it would have been hard to been worse than losing 59 seconds when noone else did.
They lost Robert Kiserlovski to an early crash on the stage, a blow to their climbing support for Zakarin.
Best Result: 3rd - Marcel Kittel - Stage 1
14. Groupama- FDJ (down one position)
Not a stage that played to the strengths of the FDJ squad, though Rudy Molard may have been a rider to watch if he wasn't injured.
Best Result: 3rd - Arnaud Demare - Stage 2
15. UAE Team Emirates (up two positions)
Dan Martin put a warning out for the stage finish atop the Mur de Bretagne with a sixth place into Quimper. He specialises in these sort of hard finishes and it would have been one of the stages that the Irishman would have earmarked.
Best Result: 4th - Alexander Kristoff - Stage 1
16. Lotto Soudal (down one position)
Losing Tiesj Benoot before the start of the stage was a massive blow, and it takes a potential stage winner out of the Belgian team. They'll need to wait for the race to get a bit more flat before they have a big impact on proceedings.
Best Result: 3rd - Andre Greipel - Stage 4
17. Direct Energie (up two positions)
The French Pro Continental squad were the main catalyst for entertainment throughout the stage. Sylvain Chavanel decided that one long-range solo move wasn't enough for his 2018 Tour and tried another one. Lilian Calmejane remonstrated with breakaway compnaion Nicholas Edet (Cofidis) but did a creditable ride.
They missed out on their main goal of taking the mountains jersey, outfoxed by the Trek-Segafredo youngster Tom Skuijns.
Best Result: 12th - Lilian Calmejane - Stage 4
18. Lotto NL-Jumbo (down two positions)
The best Lotto NL-Jumbo could have hoped for on this stage was not to lose time and they managed that. GC riders Steven Kruijswijk and Primoz Roglic aren't the most explosive of climbers and will be in loss prevention mode again tomorrow.
Best Result: 4th - Dylan Groenewegen - Stage 4
19. Cofidis (up two positions)
They managed to made a bit of a splash this time around. Nicolas Edet caused some resentment in the breakaway when he refused to pull turns.
Julien Simon was active on the finishing climb but not really close to taking a result.
Best Result: 5th - Christophe Laporte - Stage 1
20. AG2R-La Mondiale (down two positions)
It's all about the great French hope. Bardet will need to fire for this squad to move anywhere on these rankings, something that won't happen until the big mountains in the second week.
Best Result: 18th GC - Romain Bardet
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21. Fortuneo-Samsic (down one position)
They made the break this time round, but Elie Gesbert crashed out in an odd fashion, careening off the road with seemingly little explanation for it.
Best Result: 1 day in KOM jersey - Kevan Ledanois
22. Dimension Data (same)
Credit to them for trying to create something by putting a man, Julian Vermote, in the early move. Typical for their Tour, he didn't survive when the move split up mid-race and the team didn't have any impact on the finish either.
Best Result: 19th - Edvald Boasson Hagen - Stage 1
