Yeah, I think we can all agree that it was executed terribly.
The concept of the Face-Off is great - you need to compete with other teams and you can't move forward with your race until you beat someone. Sounds exciting!
Putting it right at the start of the leg, after a bunching point, is the only way to go, though. If the frites race was the very first task after teams navigated their way there from the airport, and then we had all the Roadblock/Detour drama afterwards, I'd be ecstatic.
It even makes sense to place it without a bunching point before - that means it sort of is a bunching point, and arriving earlier gives you more opportunities in the number of teams you can square off against. But what happened this last leg was placing a bunching point before a pit stop. Who does that?
It's like the random train bunching before the pitstop on S28E04, where they made all the leg placements depend on a foot race. Might as well have made that a Face-Off, too.