{"id":241047,"date":"2026-07-17T00:28:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/study-finds-choice-of-team-car-could-decide-the-tour-de-france"},"modified":"2026-07-17T00:28:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:28:02","slug":"study-finds-choice-of-team-car-could-decide-the-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/study-finds-choice-of-team-car-could-decide-the-tour-de-france","title":{"rendered":"Study finds choice of team car could decide the Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/study-finds-choice-of-team-car-could-decide-the-tour-de-france2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Elite athletes competing in the Tour de France could gain more than eight seconds in the individual time trial depending solely on the type of team car following them, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbanphysics.net\/Article_DiffVehicles_BBlocken.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a new study<\/a> has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>The research, the third in a pioneering series by the world\u2019s leading experts on cycling aerodynamics, shows that a car driving behind a cyclist gives the rider a measurable aerodynamic push and that the size and shape of that car could be the difference between winning and losing.<\/p>\n<p>Led by Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, in partnership with Ansys, part of Synopsys, the study comes ahead of the Tour de France individual time trial on Tuesday, July 21, a 26.1 km (16.2-mile) stage from \u00c9vian-les-Bains to Thonon-les-Bains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elite athletes competing in the Tour de France could gain more than eight seconds in the individual time trial depending solely on the type of team car following them, a new study has revealed. The research, the third in a pioneering series by the world\u2019s leading experts on cycling aerodynamics, shows that a car driving [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}