La Vuelta a Espana 2020 Stage 6 - As it happened

Here's your new GC:

1. Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers)
2. Hugh Carthy (EF Pro Cycling), +18''
3. Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation), +20''
4. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), +30''

1. Ion Izagirre (Astana)
2. Michael Woods (EF Pro Cycling)
3. Rui Costa (EF Pro Cycling)
4. Rob Power (Sunweb)
5. Michael Valgren (NTT Pro Cycling)

Rob Power finishes just off the podium for the stage.

Which means he'll cede the red jersey to Richard Carapaz.

He's stolen a handful of seconds from the Ecuadorian there as he crosses the line about eighth.

Epic stuff from the Basque brothers after Gorka set up this attack.

Back down the mountain, Roglic and Mas are together, while Carapaz and Carthy are taking big chunks of time out of them.

Ion Izagirre looks good for the victory.

Roglic is beginning to crack as he loses ground on the Chaves, Martin, Mas group just temporarily.

Roglic battles hard to close the gap to Chaves. Dan Martin is there with them.

Soler and the Groupama duo have caught the first remnants of the break as Ion Izagirre battles on up the mountain.

Hugh Carthy and Richard Carapaz are gaining time on Roglic right now! They are not far off Soler, now.

After his brother's work, it's Ion who has gone!

Esteban Chaves, the baby Kangaroo, goes flying out of the pack. There's no immediate response from Roglic.

Hugh Carthy and Felix Grossschartner follow the Colombian from Mitchelton Scott.

They're just starting to look at each other now and – surprise of the century – Rui Costa is skipping turns.

Teammates Bruno Armirail and David Gaudu have gone rocketing out of the bunch and are attempting to bridge to the leaders. Gaudu is Groupama's leader-by-default after the early withdrawal of Thibaut Pinot from this race.

Marc Soler has bridged over to that pair and he too is interested in the stage win, it seems.

The pursuers have caught Gorka now and Guillaume Martin is looking in pugilistic mood.

The peloton has been blown to pieces by the pace setting of Movistar, as David de la Cruz attacks out of the pack.

George Bennett has come to the front now, with Soler and Mas still there riding behind. Dan Martin is also in the mix.

The Kiwi is doing a marvellous job keeping his leader safe now, but this road only gets steeper and steeper as it nears the summit. Movistar has three riders, with Valverde and Soler both pulling for Enric Mas.

This next turn from Soler will be crucial to how the race pans out.

I maybe did Gorka a disservice there, he's still ahead of the pursuers, with brother Ion getting a lovely armchair ride for as long as he stays up ahead.

The gap back to the peloton is now 2'41" as Movistar continue to drive through the rain. Roglic has made his way back to the front of the bunch but I can't see a single Jumbo rider with him.

These are the names left in the pursuing group, some 15 seconds behind Gorka on the road:

Rui Costa, Rob Power, Michael Storer, Ion Izagirre, Dylan Van Baarle, Michael Woods, Georg Zimmermann, Guillaume Martin and Michael Valgren.

Lot of Michaels.

They have G. Izagirre in their sights now but it looks as though he may actually have sat up.

Meanwhile, Movistar has called its domestiques from the escape back to help them with the pace setting in the peloton. They want to make this climb brutally hard for Roglic.

Gorka is no longer the virtual race leader and he now has just 17 seconds on the pursuers.

Three minutes down the road, the peloton is greatly reduced and being led my the blue Ms of Movistar. They are setting a ferocious pace here and probably won't be winning any popularity contests at the end of this first week of racing.

Roglic is isolated in the peloton and riding mid-pack.

Still no clear answer as to what happened to him.

The road is all uphill for the rest of the day.

Here's the moment earlier when the Basque opened up his gap.

Seems the Slovenian got distanced and now is really fighting hard to get back to the head of the peloton. George Bennett went back for him after what was possible a menchanical?

Astana are coming to the front of the peloton now, maybe with the goal of disrupting the chase of their men Ion and Gorka up the road.

Jumbo have all asked the team car for a second coat to put on, on top of the ones they were already wearing.

The peloton is down to about 40 riders total now. Roglic looks to have been dropped, just temporarily?

Gorka Izagirre is 35 seconds ahead of the rest of the breakaway.

Quite what effect this acceleration from Gorka Izagirre will have on the composition of the break remains to be seen, but it's hard to imagine all 23 riders will get back together again today.

The Basque is still virtual red jersey right now, as he concludes the descent and begins the flat prelude to the climb of the Formigal.

He's tackling a little rise now, before the day's intermediate sprint and then the long climb of the Formigal. As he tucks down onto his tip tube, there's so much water on the road now that this is really quite scary to watch.

Ineos have come to the front of the peloton and they're shepherding their man Carapaz down this incredibly wet descent. They look like they are attacking the descent with intention to split things up and make life behind in the peloton stressful. It's Amador making the pace and he is ripping it.

Meanwhile, Gorka Izagirre has distanced the rest of the breakaway on the way downhill. Whether that's by dint of his peerless descending skills, or a genuine effort to take on the rest of this stage solo, we don't know.

He'll add five more points to his account after a spirited little tussle with Michael Storer of Sunweb just before the summit.

Let's hear from Britain's best-placed rider in the race, Hugh Carthy, about what the end of this stage augurs.

Another factor at play here in the break is Mattia Cattaneo of Deceuninck, who is 4'16" down on GC. He's not a credible winner of this race overall, but he's within striking distance of the lead at the moment.

The breakaway has begun the long and gentle ascent of the Alto de Cotefablo. It's a cat 2, with maximum points of 5 for the first across the top.

The escape is forging on and improving its advantage now. They have broken the four-minute barrier.

Israel StartUp Nation are now helping with the chase, which strikes me as a misstep from Dan Martin's team. Compared with race leaders, Jumbo Visma, they are seriously underpowered – and can't really afford to burn matches like this.

I would say that the balance is tipping in their favour – at least in terms of someone from this break winning the stage,

They'll surely fracture at some point, but we can be hopeful of seeing someone emerge victorious.

Michael Woods has had a tough Vuelta so far with an inopportune crash losing him a bit of time on GC. He might be there to act as a foil for Hugh Carthy, but if he's off the leash he can easily win this.

Guillaume Martin is also a clear favourite for the victory, not to mention our early animator of the stage, Remi Cavgana.

We are seeing some utterly miserable conditions coming off the Alto de Petralba now. Driving rain, wind, lots of muck.

Guillaume Martin took the maximum points on that first cat 3 climb of the day, moving him into fifth in the mountains classification on 10 points. He'd have to win the whole stage to take the jersey off Tim Wellens tonight, but we may have found our two key protagonists in that contest already in the form of the Frenchman and the Belgian.

Wellens, in fact, is also leading another ranking; for the number of kilometres spent in the break. He's already amassed 315km out front. Mega.

And out come the rain coats...

The gap is 3'50" and it's still Jumbo pulling in the peloton.

The Astana rider is in virtual rojo, now. What response will that provoke from the tree trunk-like legs of Paul Martens?

The weather is taking a turn for the worse now.

The Basque rider, one of two brothers in this race and in this breakaway, heads back to the car for a chinwag.

He's the key man in this break right now, because of his danger to the race lead.

It would be magnificent to see a Basque lead the Vuelta, wouldn't it? Hasn't happened since 2014 when Jonathan Castroviejo took victory in the opening day time trial.

Something of an unsung rider, Paul Martens, but he's doing crucial work here in service of Jumbo-Visma. He's already spent hours uncounted on the front of the bunch in La Vuelta, and he's managing to keep a group of 23 on a leash of just three minutes single-handed today.

The breakaway looks to be cooperating nicely here.

Gorka Izagirre is 40 seconds off the virtual lead at this point.

Intriguingly, Jumbo-Visma have not got anyone in this move, while Movistar, EF and Ineos are all represented with at least one rider.

Cavagna, Cattaneo (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Costa, Henao (UAE), Power, Storer, Sütterlin (Sunweb), I. Izagirre, G. Izagirre (Astana), Van Baarle (Ineos Grenadiers), Cort, Woods (Education First), Jauregui (AG2R), Zimmermann (CCC) G.Martin, Lafay, Perichon (Cofidis), Valgren (NTT), Arcas, Verona (Movistar), Hivert (Total Direct Energie), Amezqueta (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Cabedo (Burgos-BH)

The AG2R rider who has made the break has an interest in the king of the mountains competition with six points at the start of the day.

Before he thinks about that, though, he has to get that damn leg warmer off.

Finally, Cavagna is caught by the group behind him – or perhaps, allows them to catch him. That presents us with a very strong breakaway group of 23 riders, total.

We'll have the full list of names in a moment. Jumbo Visma are taking it a bit easier, allowing the gap to go up to two minutes.

Cavagna's nickname is the TGV because he's French and goes very fast, like a train. But in Spain they call their high-speed trains, 'AVE', not TGV. What that means for his nickname on the day we come closest to his home nation, who knows.

The Deceuninck rider is just 26 seconds ahead of the peloton, still solo, and still being pursued by a group of 20-or-so riders in the gap behind.

Gorka Izagirre isthe best-placed on GC of the riders in the 20. He's 3'37" down.

As another trio sallies forth from the peloton, there's a strong-looking group of 12 up the road – with Remi Cavagna still refusing to play well with others as he dangles alone a further 200m up the road as the 'head of the race'.

This is gonna go all day at this rate... The Dane looks as though he is abandoning the effort and leaving Remi Cavagna off the front there to battle alone.

Remy Mertz has evaporated. Maybe there were too many Remis?

It's still all go here. That trio I mentioned are still out the front, but now Burgos BH are trying desperately to get into the move as well.

That's the start of the stage and it looks as though Nans Peters is eager to be involved in the action. Burgos leads an attack with Lotto Soudal, Total Direct Energie and Sunweb all in the wheels.

The competition is utterly frantic at the moment. Magnus Cort Nielsen, Remi Cavagna and Remy Mertz all trying to make something happen. That's a strong trio, but it's not a strong enough break to win the stage.

It's a tough one to call this, with an easier course than was initially planned for stage 6. No Tourmalet, no Aubisque, but we do still have the small matter of the Formigal.

I can't see anyone in the GC right now who could have the beating of Primoz Roglic in the time trial in week three, and so really the other teams must try and wrest the rojo from his shoulders in the mountains. Mountains like these.

If the GC men are trying to drop each other then that will likely put paid to any breakaway hopes, but yesterday we saw the peloton completely unbothered about the break – effectively giving up the chase with 40km to go.

We reached the Pyrenées yesterday, but today is where the road really gets tough.

Vamonos!

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