Tour de France 2023 Stage 5 recap – Triumphant Jai Hindley in yellow as Vingegaard breaks Pogacar

The 2022 Giro d'Italia champion Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) is the big dangerman in this breakaway - and the Australian has his German team-mate Emanuel Buchmann with him. This is really interesting. Jumbo-Visma have three riders in Van Aert, Laporte and Benoot, while UAE Team Emirates have Grossschartner and Soler. This is fascinating...

Cavagna and Muhlberger have been reabsorbed into a huge break of around 40 riders which includes Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen, who are very much driving the tempo. It's going to take some time to figure out who is here and what that means - but the yellow jersey Adam Yates and his team-mate Tadej Pogacar, plus defending champion Jonas Vingegaard, are all back in the main peloton.

Around 20 riders have put some daylight between themselves and the peloton, with Remi Cavagna (Soudal-QuickStep) and Gregor Muhlberger (Movistar) edging up the road. This duo will be caught soon by the chasers. Meanwhile, Mark Cavendish has been dropped and is chasing back on with some Astana team-mates - while the Jakobsen-Morkov group is 1'30" back.

A big group forms off the front - and when Tadej Pogacar effortlessly bridges over, a grenade has been detonated in the pack. Vingegaard and his Jumbo team-mates are forced to react and they join the double Tour champion on the offensive. That means we have an even larger and even stronger group forming off the front. Meanwhile, at the back of the race on these tough leg-sapping rolling roads, Fabio Jakobsen is in deep trouble. He's off the back again and over a minute in arrears.

Julian Alaphilippe leads a group of around eight over to the leader - but the gap is very small, with the peloton breathing down the break's neck. Rigo Uran is also in this move, which looks like it will be brought to heel very soon. Now that we have gone over a small hill, Jakobsen has managed to rejoin the back of the pack after his earlier wobble.

After a brief cameo on the front from Julian Alaphilippe, it's Wout van Aert who decides to stamp his authority on things. His acceleration strings out the peloton and puts sprinter Fabio Jakobsen deep in the pain cave. The Dutchman crashed in the finale yesterday and he's already been distanced by the pack. It's going to be a long day for Jakobsen today. Thankfully, he has team-mate Michael Morkov with him, the Danish veteran urging him to keep his cool and ride it out. Van Aert's acceleration has seen Latour's advantage drop to 10 seconds.

Maxim van Gils (Lotto Dstny) is showing some intent with a couple of digs on the front. He takes Axel Zingle of Cofidis with him - one of the numerous riders who took a tumble on the race track yesterday. Alexey Lutsenko is also in the mix, ditto British champion Fred Wright. But it comes to nothing.

As Latour's lead creeps up to 25 seconds, it's the polka dot jersey of Neilson Powless who leads the next wave of attacks. The American is chased down, bizarrely, by sprinter Bryan Coquard, along with a raft of other riders, who snuff out the threat and bring Powless to heel.

Mattias Skjelmose hits the deck after a touch of wheels in the pack, so the Danish champion from Lidl-Trek will have to fight back on just when the race is intensifying on the front. Mathieu van der Poel takes advantage of the lull to ride clear in pursuit of Latour, but his move is neutralised after multiple riders bridge over. A very active start so far.

Poor Pierre - his gap is very small but the peloton is not letting anyone else bridge over, so it's far from ideal for the Frenchman.

Frenchman Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) zips clear and no one goes with him. He opens up a small gap but will no doubt be joined by reinforcements soon. Jumbo Visma very much in the mix behind as they look to get a man in the move to act as a relay later on for Jonas Vingegaard.

Christian Prudhomme finally waves his flag and the race is set for the Pyrenees. Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny) is among the first wave of attackers, but nothing comes from these early skirmishes.

For a second day running, Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel proved his weight in gold for Alpecin-Deceuninck team-mate Jasper Philipsen in the finale yesterday. After Philipsen found himself isolated on the home straight, Van der Poel came to his aid and then led him out with gusto. But replays show that he shoulder-barged Biniam Girmay as he fought back to the front of the pack to pick up Philipsen - a move which saw him relegated to 22nd place, fined 500 swiss francs, and docked 11 green jersey points and 13 UCI points.

This news hadn't dropped when the Breakaway panel discussed Van der Poel's role in helping Philipsen to a second straight win yesterday.

It's a dual blow for two of the race's main sprinters Mark Cavendish and Caleb Ewan who have lost key components of their respective lead-out trains. Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana-Qazaqstan) and Jacopo Guarnieri (Lotto Dstny) both came down in the second of three crashes on the finish circuit yesterday. Both riders broke their collarbones and will not take to the start today.

The remaining 172 riders are soft-pedalling through the streets of Pau. It's a very long neutral zone today and they still have another 7km to go before the flag goes down. It's another cloudy day in southwest France but the sun is battling through and we can see swathes of blue sky.

“I need to be in the breakaway today for more points – so, I think me and another 130 riders want to be in the breakaway, so it’s going to be a tough fight. I think it might be the hardest day for me wearing this jersey. I think a lot of other guys who maybe want the polka dots as well are going to show their hands today. It’s going to be a bit fight for sure, but I’m wearing the polka dot jersey already which is really motivating.

“[The GC favourites] could [ruin my chances]. Today anything is possible because there are bonus seconds on offer on the final climb and at the finish – maybe Tadej thinks he can take some time on Jonas because he’s shown himself to be a stronger sprinter.

"There are so many riders who want to go in the breakaway so it’s going to be hard to control. Today is probably a better chance for the breakaway arriving than tomorrow. But anything can happen, I’m not really sure."

Cast your mind back three years and Tadej Pogacar picked up his first ever Tour de France stage win in Laruns in stage 9 of the 2020 Tour de France. Little did we know back then that this would be the first of three stage wins for the Slovenian - the last of which, in the ITT at La Planche des Belles Filles, would see him take the yellow jersey from the shoulders of his compatriot Primoz Roglic.

In Laruns back then, Pogacar beat Roglic, Egan Bernal and the Swiss livewire Marc Hirshi in a thrilling sprint after the latter had been caught after the final descent, but then fought back and looked almost certain to pick up a maiden win of his own.

It was heartbreak for Hirshi, who had already finished runner-up in Stage 2. But the Swiss did get his win eventually four days later in Stage 12. His performances for Team Sunweb earned him a high-money move to Pogacar's UAE squad where - let's be honest - things haven't really worked out.

Well, it's a starter of frantic racing to make the break along largely flat roads for over 70km. Then we have a main course of the Col du Soudat, the first HC climb of the Tour, followed by a dessert of the Col d'Ichere and a sharp cheese course of the Col de Marie Blanque. All before a digestif downhill of around 16km towards Laruns for the finish.

Funnily enough, the Breakaway has Powless' manager Jonathan Vaughters on their studio panel today and he's just shared his thoughts about his rider's chances of pushing for polka dots in this Tour.

“We came into the race with the goal of the king of the mountains jersey. So, some of our plans got torn apart on the first day, but quite a bit of our plans remains totally intact. Today and tomorrow will be the days where we can determine whether this is a real challenge, or whether this is just a few days in the jersey.

"This Tour de France is a bit different from other years because there aren’t as many double points opportunities on mountaintop finishes. So a strong climber that can sniff out the breakaways has a chance to win the jersey – doesn’t mean he will, but it doesn’t just mean it will be the guy who also wins the yellow jersey.

"It won’t all come down to today or tomorrow, but these two days will give us an indication of whether we can fight for this all the way to Paris, or if it’s just a temporary bit of fun."

There's a maximum 32 king of the mountains points up for grabs today which could entice Neilson Powless out of the peloton after the American - along with everyone else, until that late duo - took a day off yesterday. With his polka dot prowess, Powless has given his EF Education-EasyPost team a boost since losing leader Richard Carapaz on day one. He currently leads the KOM standings on 18pts with his nearest challenger, Pogacar, on 7pts.

Today may see the focus shift from sprints and the green jersey to climbs and the yellow, but it would be remiss not to zone in on the pulsating start to the Tour for Belgium's Jasper Philipsen. It took him half the race to pick up his maiden Tour stage win last year and then he doubled up on the Champs-Elysees. Wind forward 12 months and the 25-year-old already has two wins from just four days in the saddle.

The Alpecin-Deceunick sprinter will take some beating this year - but we won't see much of the fast men until Friday when the next bunch sprint is expected to play out on the streets of Bordeaux.