Lance Armstrong [Images] compared his best friend and team mate George Hincapie to five-times Tour de France [Images] champion Bernard Hinault after the American won the toughest stage of this year's race on Sunday.

The New Yorker, who has lived in the shadow of Armstrong all his career, stole the limelight in the blazing sun of the Pyrenees at Pla-d'Adet.

The victory was all the more symbolic for the tall, soft-spoken 32-year-old as the last winner in the ski resot overlooking St Lary was his Discovery Channel team leader.

"He's a special rider," said Armstrong. "He was ahead in Paris-Roubaix, then he leads the bunch in the Galibier and now this.

"Have you ever seen someone like that? Maybe Bernard Hinault, who was also something else."

"It's perfect," added the six-times Tour champion.

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"He's my best friend in the team, my best friend in cycling. A long-time friend I've known since the junior ranks. We were always in cycling together, and now he wins his first Tour stage, at the top of a mountain.

"It's unbelievable."

It was all the more incredible as Hincapie, unlike his boss, has been at his best all year.

In April he won Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, a small but prestigious Belgian classic. He finished a close second to Belgian Tom Boonen in the Queen of Classics, Paris-Roubaix, and in June's Dauphine Libere he won two stages.

"It was a great year for me. I did well in the classics, I had a baby daughter," Hincapie said.

"France is my second country and I'm glad my family and my daughter were here to see this," added Hincapie, who is married a Frenchwoman he met on the Tour.

"My plan was to join an early breakaway, to take some lead and help Lance. Then we found we had an 18-minute lead and (team manager) Johan (Bruyneel) told me they won't catch you now, do your own race.

"I'd previewed that stage a month ago and when I finished the last climb at the time, I was dead. That's why I tried to save energy today, knowing how tough it was."

Hincapie was 14 when he first met Armstrong and is the only rider to have been in the Texan's team for each of his six Tour victories.

"We met a long time ago. I was 14 and he was 16 and at the time, he was already sensational.

"The first race we did, I asked what the tactics were and he said 'I attack and I win', and that's what he did.

"He's one of my best friends and I owe him everything."

Armstrong said his imminent retirement at the end of this Tour would be unlikely to change anything.

"I guess we'll still be friends in 20 or 30 years. It's the seventh Tour we've done together and if I didn't retire, I'd do it again."