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A lot has been written about the big 4 favorites to win the Tour de France. But what happens if we apply our grand tour favorites formula on the starting list? The formula includes a weighted score on climbing, time trial and grand tour capabilities. In this formula, recent results have a bigger weight than older results. Grand tour capabilities are scored as a plus or minus factor (or neutral), depending on career performance in grand tours. Applying the formula, we get the following list of favorites. The scores are normalised at 100% for the top favorite.

Figure 1. Favorites according to a weighted scored formula based on climber and time trial capabilities.

Lonely at the top of the list is Giro d'Italia winner Tadej Pogacar, followed by last years winner Jonas Vingegaard. In this list, Adam Yates receives the same score as Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic. One can argue that because Yates is a teammate of Pogacar, he has less chance of winning the race. Then, for the fun of it, let's check out some statistics on the top favorites.

Figure 2. Ages of the GC favorites.

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Figure 3. Number of stage race DNFs in the past 5 years for the GC favorites.

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Figure 4. Racedays this season for the GC favorites.

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Figure 5. Days since last raceday for GC riders untill start of Tour of France.

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Figure 6. Top-10 career finishing percentage when the race ProfileScore is above 250.

Figure 7. Total time trial points scored for the GC favorites in the last 3 years.

A thrilling Tour de France awaits us. Will the win go to the new cannibal Pogacar, to the old but tough Roglich, the time trial specialist Evenepoel or can Vingegaard reach his 2023 summer form soon? We quickly will find out.