Tour de France 2023 Stage 6 recap: Jonas Vingegaard in yellow despite losing out to winner Tadej Pogacar

The shake-out continues from this break, which is now down to eight riders. Van der Poel, meanwhile, has now been caught by the peloton, which is 3'38" down on the leaders. Jumbo have lost Laporte and Benoot as the riders head towards the misty summit of the Tourmalet, around 5.5km up the road. This is the Tour's 89th visit to the Col du Tourmalet, which is arguably the most famous climb in the race's history.

UAE UNDER FIRE AFTER TADEJ POGACAR TROUBLES YESTERDAY

Tadej Pogacar's bid for a third Tour de France crown unravelled on Wednesday as Jonas Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma brutally exposed him. The Slovenian leaked over a minute to Vingegaard, seeing all his hard work in the Basque Country – where he took multiple time bonuses – wiped out. Given he arrived with a fractured wrist, it begs the question: why ride so aggressively from the off?

Neilands has been dropped along with Juul-Jensen and Naesen, so the leaders are down to 10 men with Alaphilippe just about clinging on. Uno-X (Johanssen and Gregaard), Movistar (Guerreiro and Izagirre) and EF (Powless and Shaw) each have two riders in the move, which also includes Van Aert (Jumbo), Kwiatkowski (Ineos), Alaphilippe (Soudal) and Louvel (Arkea-Samsic). But their advantage is under four minutes now.

Just as they did on the Aspin, Jumbo-Visma now put there remaining seven riders onto the front of the main pack on the Tourmalet. The gap is 4'30" but we can expect it to come down considerably with this pick up in pace. Hindley and Pogacar still have team-mates but they look very much like outsiders compared to Jonas Vingegaard in the current situation. Meanwhile, remnants of the break are being swept including Coquard and Asgreen.

Well, that was strange. Shaw's reaction was understandable - the debutant covered the attack to help out team-mate Powless, who wants the KOM points. Alaphilippe's motivations are unknown. He probably wanted more riders to come with him so reduce the numbers in this break. But once he realised he only had Shaw with him, he sat up and they are now both back with the break. Van Aert sets a tempo which Van der Poel can't keep up with - the Dutchman is the next to pop.

First blood to Julian Alaphilippe, who comes to the front of the break and then kicks clear. The only rider to follow is James Shaw of EF. The duo open up a gap but then the Frenchman inexplicably looks over his shoulders and slams on the brakes. No idea what that's about - some kind of power play between him and Shaw? In any case, he calms down a little after the two have words.

After Jumbo's cameo on the front on the Aspin, Bora are now back with six riders - including yellow jersey Jai Hindley and German champion Emanuel Buchmann - are controlling things in the main pack. Given the difficulty of this test, we can expect Vingegaard's army to pile on the pressure again later on, but for now they're happy to follow in the tyre tracks of Bora. The gap is pushing five minutes now for the 14 leaders.

The 14 leaders are onto the HC climb of the Col du Tourmalet, which is 17.1km at 7.3%. They're attacking it from the east and via the ski resort of La Mongie. After ripping down that descent, the break has an advantage of over four minutes now. The gap is 4'33" to be precise.

Six Jumbo-Visma riders are on the front of the main field as they sweep over the summit of the Col d'Aspin with a deficit of 3'20" on the break. Mathieu van der Poel is pushing the pace on the descent for the leaders with Van Aert not far behind. Up next, the Col de Tourmalet...

The American edges ahead of Van Aert and then responds to a late push from Movistar's Guerreiro to pocket the 10pts on the Aspin that puts him back in the virtual polka dot jersey. He's now on 30pts which is 2pts ahead of the overnight leader, Felix Gall.

There's a real shake-up in the break following that acceleration from the Belgian with the likes of Coquard, Asgreen, Trentin and Arndt among those distanced. Meanwhile, Cosnefroy has been caught by the pack, which is all strung out now as Laporte takes a huge pull for Jumbo-Visma. They clearly want to do their best to place Vingegaard in yellow today...

And they do so both in the breakaway and the main pack: no sooner has Christophe Laporte brought the Jumbo train past Bora-hansgrohe on the front of the pack than Van Aert ups the tempo to blow the breakaway apart. Explosive stuff here from Jonas Vingegaard's team-mates. Let's see how this pans out.

Bob Jungels, Marco Haller and Nils Politt ride on the front of the peloton for the yellow jersey Jai Hindley, who has German champion Emanuel Buchmann, Austria's Patrick Konrad and, I think, Danny van Poppel tucked in behind. In fact, the entire team is there except their sprinter Jordi Meeus, who has just been dropped from the pack. Behind the Bora train we have the entire Jumbo squad minus Van Aert, who is up the road in the break, followed by Pogacar's UAE team. The gap is 3'25" for the 19 leaders, who are still without Cosnefroy after his earlier wobble.

Frenchman Benoit Cosnefroy is the first of the escapees to be dropped from the break, which is a surprise because, on his day, the AG2R man is a solid climber. Perhaps he's just popping back to the team car. Meanwhile, Fabio Jakobsen and Mark Cavendish are among the sprinters to be jettisoned from the pack. Jakobsen was the last to finish yesterday in the gruppetto, well within the time limit but still 34 minutes in arrears.

When the peloton hits the foot of the Aspin, the team-mates of Vingegaard and Pogacar flock to the front - but it's all just mind games and power play, because before long Bora have restored the order for their man in yellow, Hindley. It will be interesting to see how Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates tackle the Tourmalet later. Will Vingegaard look to build on yesterday's performance, or will Pogacar try to bite back?

The breakaway have started the second climb of the day, the first category Col d'Aspin, which is 12km at 6.6%. They have 3'20" over the pack with Kasper Asgreen, the Soudal team-mate of Julian Alaphilippe, setting the tempo.

Frenchman Bryan Coquard does exactly what he did yesterday and takes the maximum 20pts in the intermediate sprint at Sarrancolin. Coquard edged ahead of the break with Van Aert on his wheel and Van der Poel passing for third place. Van Aert won the green jersey last year but said he wasn't prioritising it this year - and so far he's stuck to his promise. That said, some extra points won't go amiss - and things may change as the race gets deeper.

The virtual points classification is like this:

1. Jasper Philipsen 150pts
2. Bryan Coquard 104pts
3. Wout van Aert 92pts
4. Victor Lafay 80pts
5. Mads Pedersen 76pts

Jai Hindley's father, Gordon, who is originally from northern England (hence his very un-Australian accent), spoke about his son at the start in Tarbes. He really opened up about the yellow jersey's passion for cycling, his growing up in Western Australia and his various interests. It's a cracking interview and tells us so much about Hindley, how he fits in at Bora, and what makes him the rider he is now.

We're bound to see Bryan Coquard zip clear to take the points here and keep up the pressure on Jasper Philipsen. It's coming up in around five kilometres...