Crashes, wet roads, echelons, your riders caught behind the split – the Tour de France can be a stressful time to be a DS.

And any wannabe team bosses are certainly discovering that the hard way if our Fantasy Tour de France game is anything to go by.

More than 3,000 entered our game, with some great prizes from Suplest, Chapeau! and Juice Lubes up for grabs at http://fantasycycling.roadcyclinguk.com

Competition for those prizes has already been fierce, too, with Peter Sagan, Marcel Kittel and Alexander Kristoff leading Quercus riders to top spot ahead of stage seven.

But with 14 stages still to ride after today’s stage, there is plenty of time for it all to change.

So who should you bring in, who should you replace and where has it all gone wrong so far?

Who’s hot

With the fast men and rouleurs having been given their chance to shine, it is little surprise to see Peter Sagan leading the way in terms of points accrued.

Having not finished any lower than fifth so far, the Slovakian – who currently tops the points classification and best young rider classification too – has accrued 293 points, which means he has brought plenty of reward for his €9.5 million price tag.

Marcel Kittel, too, has earned any budding directeurs sportif plenty of reward with his three stage wins and the yellow jersey on stage one, racking up 225 points, while Alexander Kristoff (€8.5 million) has 160 points.

It is not just the fast men who have shone, either, with Vincenzo Nibali – one of the most expensive riders in the race at €10.0 million – having pulled in 196 points after his stage two success, third on stage five and his – as yet unbroken – stint in the yellow jersey.

When it comes to value for money, however, few have fared better than the €3.5 million-rated Bryan Coquard (Team Europcar).

Anybody who took a punt on the 22-year-old Frenchman has been richly rewarded with 130 points added to their team’s account.

Who’s not

At the other end of the scale, there have been plenty of expensive, misguided choices which would certainly not have been made with hindsight.

Plenty of bosses packed their Fantasy teams with sprinters early on, rightly so given the number of sprint stages in the first week, but not all of the fast men have come up with the goods.

Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) is, unsurprisingly, the most removed rider after his race ended following his stage one crash.

The bosses who opted to include Chris Froome (Team Sky) from the start, too, may feel they had pulled off a coup when he sprinted to sixth on stage one but the Kenyan-born Brit is now the second most removed rider after abandoning on stage five.

It is not just the riders out of the race who have failed to impress either – John Degenkolb has taken a back seat to Marcel Kittel at Giant-Shimano and so can boast just 12 points after costing €9.0 million.

And the German, with a ruptured gluteus maximus, may not get much chance to add to that any time soon either.

Frank Schleck (Trek Factory Racing), and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr) are to be avoided too, neither having scored a point as their respective hopes of a good GC placing crash have already been dealt huge blows.

Arnaud Demare (FDJ.fr), meanwhile, though good value at just €4.5 million, was expected to deliver far more than the 54 points he had by the end of stage six.

Who to change

With the transfer window resetting ahead of stage eight, it is now time to turn attention to the climbers and GC men.

With the exception of rouleurs like Sagan, there is unlikely to be much opportunity for the fast men in the next week.

Sagan will continue accruing green jersey points at the very least, and may also fancy himself if the race stays together on stages eight, 11 and 12.

All other stages feature the start of the big climbs, however, with the breakaway specialists – Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) and, of course, Jens Voigt (Trek Factory Racing) among them – likely to be licking their lips too.

Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) has a chance to assert his authority in the yellow jersey, too, while Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) will be keen to claw back the seconds.

Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) also appears to be in good shape so far, while Richie Porte (Team Sky) has the chance to prove himself as team leader.

Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) has been quiet so far, but he proved his form at the Tour de Suisse, while at the other end of the price scale Tom-Jelte Slagter (Garmin-Sharp) and Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) cost just €4.5 million each.

The mountains will also see the first serious King of the Mountains challenges starting – with no GC men to support, former Vuelta mountains winner Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEDGE) may also be worth a pick at just €3.5 million.

Who have you gone for? Let us know in the forum.