Tour de France 2020 - Adam Yates, Thibaut Pinot and Jumbo-Visma on top after crosswind chaos

Britain's Adam Yates survived the Bora-Hansgrohe bomb early on in Stage 7 before dodging a crash and avoiding the splits in the crosswinds as the Mitchelton-Scott leader retained the yellow jersey ahead of back-to-back stages in the Pyrenees this weekend.

With neither of the upcoming finishes at altitude, and only one HC climb on the menu, it's something of a watered-down Pyrenean double-header – and one featuring climbs the Briton knows well. But coming off the back of such a brutal stage – ridden pretty much full-throttle because of Bora's machinations to get Peter Sagan back in green – both stages could do some real damage, particularly because of the wounded riders looking to bounce back.

"In the end it was a really tough day," Yates said after Wout van Aert's second victory of the opening week in Lavaur. "It was on from kilometre-zero to the finish, and we never really had a rest. Bora wanted to take it up all day. It would have been nice to have a rest ahead of the Pyrenees but it wasn't possible unfortunately."

The biggest casualty from the stage in terms of the GC picture was UAE-Team Emirates youngster Tadej Pogacar, who led home a chase group that also included Trek-Segafredo duo Richie Porte and Bauke Mollema, the Spaniard Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) and fellow Tour debutant Richard Carapaz of Ecuador.

Carapaz was the most unfortunate of them all, the Ineos Grenadier only losing his place in the lead group after an untimely mechanical, forcing his team to relinquish control after the earlier work by Michal Kwiatkowski to stretch things out in the tail-crosswind with 35km remaining.

Even the assistance of Jonathan Castroviejo couldn't pull Carapaz out of the quagmire and the reigning Giro champion was duly swept up by the Pogacar group before the finish. He is now two minutes down on GC depriving Ineos of their Plan B.

Egan Bernal, though, came through unscathed. The Colombian defending champion is just 13 seconds off the race summit and you can't help but think that, if anything, Carapaz's time loss at least makes the hierarchy at Ineos far simpler.

The same cannot be said for Jumbo-Visma – although having both Primoz Roglic and Tom Dumoulin in the top five hardly poses a problem for manager Richard Plugge at this stage in the race. Roglic, three seconds behind Yates and with a stage win in the bag, looks in imperial form, but having Dutchman Dumoulin as foil emphasises their strength in depth; Bernal et al still don't know which of the Jumbo riders they should follow in the event of an attack. The answer is probably both.

Losing 1'21" was a blow for Pogacar – but given the number of mechanicals he has picked up in the opening week, it was only a matter of time before one of them took its toll. On Friday, the 21-year-old had only just fought back from a bike change when Ineos stretched things out in the wind; he was on the wrong end of the leading group when the split tore it apart.

A similar situation happened to Landa following a tangle with teammate Matej Mohoric in Castres. The crash was nothing serious, but the chase back put him in a prime position to be punished by his former team's accelerations.

At least we may now see some attacks from the likes of Pogacar and Landa on the Col de Mente or Port de Bales ahead of the final climb of the Col de Peyresourde on Saturday – a welcome prospect given the frustrating stalemates at Orcieres-Merlette and Mont Aigoual.

The only rider to attack on the Tour's first two summit finishes was the Frenchman Guillaume Martin of Cofidis, who rose up to third place following Pogacar's plight. Martin has looked more assured of his climbing ability this year and, at just nine seconds from the yellow jersey, he may never have a better chance to lead the Tour. Not perceived as a major threat, the others may just let him.

Last year, the overall chances of another Frenchman, Thibault Pinot of Groupama-FDJ, suffered a blow when he lost time in the crosswinds that animated Stage 10 to Albi, just around the corner from Friday's finish in Lavaur.

One year on, it was Pinot's Groupama team who were driving the pace on the front of the race rather than seeing their man cast in the Pogacar role of leading a sorry chase from behind.

Pinot's opening day crash was a setback. But the 30-year-old seems to have come through unscathed. He sits alongside a cluster of other big names just 13 seconds down on Yates: Bernal, Dumoulin, Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic), Romain Bardet (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) and Rigoberto Uran (EF Pro Cycling).

Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) is two seconds back following his penalty earlier in the week. In theory, he should not be a factor come the Alps, but he could yet light things up in the gentler Pyrenean stages. Loulou loves a descent – so put him atop the Peyresourde with a whiff of the win and you have the right ingredients for an exciting finale.

But it's the rider sitting one place behind Alaphilippe, Emanuel Buchmann of Bora-Hansgrohe, who will be interesting to watch. The German crashed badly in the Dauphiné and almost didn't make the Tour. At Orcieres-Merlette he lost touch with the favourites but none of them pulled the trigger. As a result, Buchmann only conceded nine seconds. His rivals may regret this.

Buchmann is getting better by the day. He's hardly the most explosive of riders, but he's Bora's only viable man for the GC and finished fourth last year. The Pyrenees could cap his pitch as potential race winner.

As for Yates, he has always insisted that he is in France to win stages and not target the overall win – a line he continued to take when wresting the yellow jersey from Alaphilippe in such unexpected circumstances on Wednesday.

The 28-year-old Ineos-bound climber now finds himself in the luxurious position of being able to both prove and disprove his statements with a strong weekend in the Pyrenees, for a maiden Tour stage win would also strengthen his grip on the maillot jaune. With compatriots Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome left at home, the British flag may yet be flown by Yates on the final podium after all.