Directeur Sportif of the Tinkoff-Saxo team, Sean Yates, has been given a day long ban from the Tour de France, following an incident where team mechanic Faustino Munoz threw a bottle at a TV motorbike. Yates had been driving the car at the time, and the ban comes into effect for Stage 16.

The incident took place when Peter Sagan was changing bikes inside the last hour of racing. It seems that the Sagan was impeded by the television motorbike. After Sagan had received assistance from his team, Munoz then launched the bottle at the motorbike. It was reminiscent of a similar incident in 2003 when Mario Cipollini threw a bottle at a motorbike in Ghent-Wevelgem.

Sagan spoke to French Eurosport afterwards, saying: “The video camera was there and he was shoving past me. My car was behind the motorbike, the motorbike stopped 10m from me and he blocked the car. Everyone was angry. The mechanic just threw the bottle.”

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