Hesjedal found his form again in stage 15, a difficult mountain stage which crossed the Port de Balès. He was 16th on the stage, four minutes back of the solo winner and one minute back of new race leader Contador, but he gained time against riders like Joaquim Rodríguez, Chris Horner, and Ivan Basso, who had been ahead of him. This result put him back in the top ten overall. He further showed well in the race's queen stage, ending at the Col du Tourmalet. He finished fourth on the day, again ceding time to Contador but gaining time against almost everyone else, moving from tenth to eighth. The team had just one sprinter left of three for the flat stage 18. Cavendish won the stage handily, having a five bike length advantage over Dean in second. In the stage 19 time trial, Zabriskie was fifth. Partially due to a drastic change in wind direction as the day went on, stage winner Cancellara and the second placed Tony Martin had much better times than anyone else. Zabriskie's fifth place was three minutes off Cancellara's time, a gap of unusual size for a time trial among top level professionals. Hesjedal was 52nd on the day, but since Rodríguez was 154th and over ten minutes off Cancellara's time, Hesjedal moved up to seventh. In the Tour's largely ceremonial final stage on the Champs-Élysées, Dean placed third in the field sprint finish. While they made several headlines in the race, the team did not actually win anything and were 16th of 22 teams in the teams classification. Hesjedal's final placing was seventh, ten minutes and 15 seconds off the winning time of Tour champion Contador.