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

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...

Many riders have already been shelled out the back, including Stefan Kung (Groupama-FDJ), Rui Costa (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty) and Astana duo Mark Cavendish and Gianni Moscon.

Bora-Hansgrohe lead the peloton over the summit 3'15" in arrears. They have a solid team with some excellent climbers to help protect Hindley's yellow jersey in the days, perhaps weeks, to come. It was definitely a gamble for Vingegaard and Pogacar to disregard the Australian yesterday - he's certainly in the thick of the GC battle now, all the more so considering the Slovenian's wobble.

The American pockets the maximum two KOM points over the summit of this Cat.3 climb, which puts him onto 20pts - eight behind the current king of the mountain, Felix Gall. There are still another 40pts up for grabs though so this is just an amuse-bouche for Powless, who clearly wants his jersey back.

We spoke to Neilson Powless before today's stage which, so far, seems to be going according to plan for the 26-year-old who - it's worth adding - is riding his fourth Tour for EF. Is he hoping to take back the polka dot jersey today, asks Matt Stephens?

"Yeah, that would be nice. First step is trying to get in the breakaway. [Yesterday] I had a bit of a target on my back and I was riding the wrong waves to get in the right move. Today I'm not going to think too much about mountain points of the stage win - I'll just try and get into the break."

The breakaway has just hit the Cat.3 Cote de Capvern-les-Bains, a 5.6km test at an average gradient of 4.8%. Their advantage is 2'48" over the pack, which is being led by the Bora-Hansgrohe team of yellow jersey Jai Hindley.

The five counter-attackers have completed their bridging over so we now have 20 leaders with a strong 2'45" gap on the pack. And check this out: it's Van Aert, Van der Poel and Asgreen - three powerhouse riders you'd associate with the Tour of Flanders - who are setting the tempo and driving the momentum of this move.

The Frenchman is 7'10" down on Jai Hindley and so he's no huge threat to the yellow jersey and Bora-Hansgrohe. It's interesting to see both Jumbo and UAE putting a single satellite rider in this move. EF have one there and another chasing on, with Powless eyeing the polka dot points. Movistar - who don't have a leader now that Enric Mas has withdrawn - have two strong climbers in Izagirre and potentially Guerreiro. Coquard is there for green jersey points - he's second in the standings in that competition.

This 15-man move now has 35 seconds on the five chasers and over a minute on the peloton. Here's the breakdown...

15 leaders: Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates), Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), James Shaw (EF Education-EasyPost), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep), Nikias Arndt (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty), Benoit Cosnefroy (AG2R-Citroen), Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), Gorka Izagirre (Movistar), Krists Neilands (Israel-PremierTech), Chris Juul-Jensen (Jayco-AlUla), Matis Louvel (Arkea-Samsic), Tobias Johanssen and Jonas Gregaard (Uno-X).

5 chasers: Nielson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep), Oliver Naesen (AG2R-Citroen), Anthony Perez (Cofidis), Ruben Guerreiro (Movistar).

With the gap growing to 20 seconds it looks like the peloton has decided to let this one go. That doesn't best please a handful of riders, who zip clear in pursuit of the super-group up ahead. One of those chasers is Neilson Powless of EF Education-EasyPost, so he clearly fancies taking back the polka dot jersey today.

The move is up to around 15 riders but the peloton is breathing down its neck. Included in this break are Van Aert, Shaw, Alaphilippe, Arndt, Cosnefroy, Coquard, Izagirre, Juul-Jensen, Johanssen, Gregaard, Kwiatkowski, Trentin and Van der Poel. It's still touch and go, though, with Van Aert looking over his shoulder and easing up a little from his position on the front. Let's see how this pans out...

Around 10 riders have formed this nascent breakaway but there are more trying to come across from the peloton. The gap is around 10 seconds and so it's far from certain that this move will stick. But with riders of the calibre of Van Aert and Alaphilippe in the mix, you have to give it a chance.

Of course he does. The tactic worked well yesterday - and last year, and the year before - so why change? The Jumbo-Visma super domestique powers clear and takes Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) with him. A handful of others are trying to bridge over...

Christian Prudhomme, the race director, waves his flag from the sunroof of his Skoda to get this second stage in the Pyrenees under way...

The yellow jersey was not the only jersey to change hands yesterday: America's Neilson Powless conceded the polka dot jersey to Austria's Felix Gall, who was one of three AG2R-Citroen riders to make it into the big break of 36. Gall took maximum points over the Col de Soudet to bump Powless off the top.

Today there are 42 points up for grabs, most notably 20pts available over the Col du Tourmalet. Here's the current top 5 in the KOM standings:

1. Felix Gall 28pts
2. Giulio Ciccone 19pts
3. Jai Hindley 18pts
4. Nielson Powless 18pts
5. Daniel Martinez 15pts

The second day in the Pyrenees hinges on the infamous Aspin-Tourmalet combo ahead of the 2023 race’s first summit finish at Cauterets. The historic Col du Tourmalet (17.1km at 7.3%) is one of the most famous Tour ascents of all time and, perhaps, the only legendary ascent of the entire edition – although coming so far from the finish may dull its potential piquancy.

Still, if this short mountain stage is raced anything like the Granon stage at last year’s Tour, then we could see similar levels of activity on the Tourmalet as we saw on the Galibier in Stage 11 in 2022. It remains to be seen if any severe damage can be done on the final climb with its gentle average gradient of 5.4%.

But there’s a steep double-digit segment near the top of the 16km test to conclude what could be a pretty full-on day – so it’s not infeasible that some of the GC favourites look to make a big statement.

The peloton has set off and is currently rolling through the streets of Tarbes. Yellow jersey Jai Hindley is shooting the breeze with Wout van Aert as they start this 7km neutral section ahead of the official start. Stay tuned because we should have another fierce fight to get in the break today.

Our man Matt Stephens spoke to a downcast Tadej Pogacar this morning and he seemed pretty flat and despondent - even if he's far from thrown in the towel. Asked if he could put his finger on what went wrong yesterday, this is what he said:

"Maybe small details – a little bit of everything. The shape is here but I think the next days I can be even better. Jonas was super strong yesterday. I think he would have made a gap anyway. We’ll see the next days if I can respond. I’m good. We all expected Jonas to be so good. And we didn’t know how good I would be. So I hope I can get better in the next days. I come mentally and physically fresh to the Tour, so maybe after the rest day I can be even better."