"I don't know him that much": Paul Seixas not too worried by Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes leader Luke Tuckwell

A 60-man breakaway... that's a turn of events which certainly caught the entire Decathlon CMA CGM Team, including Paul Seixas, off-guard on the sixth stage of Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes. As the only team not present at the front, it was the French team's responsibility to limit damages, but the leader's jersey still slipped through their fingers.

"It was a bit of a strange race today," Seixas told French media at the finish line. "The breakaway caused a bit of chaos, and we got caught out a bit, but the team was really solid, and we gave it our all to keep the gap down. I’d like to tip my hat to Stefan [Bissegger] and Dan [Hoole], who did more than 100km on the front between them."

Although Decathlon were not alone in the mess today with the team race leader Alex Baudin accepting their fair share work, the situation had still escalated far out of the French team's control with several riders close in GC making their way into the escaped group.

Approaching the finale with challenging double-ascent, the head of the race still held a firm lead of roughly five minutes. At that point, it had become clear that the general classification would see a new leader - Luke Tuckwell, but the favourites have still opted to light up the race further behind:

"We’d said we’d test ourselves on the climb," Seixas said. "It was a bit short to make any real difference, but we made up time on all the favourites except Del Toro, so that’s a good thing. It was a good test. At first, he didn’t want to take any turns at the front, but when he saw that Jorgenson was no longer there, he did some turns, and I think he put in a great climb."

After the major GC shake-up caused by stage 6, Seixas would appear to have slightly fallen out of contention for overall victory, sitting in seventh place at the moment. However none of the Frenchman's hope is lost for the moment, as podium just a minute away.

Meanwhile, Tuckwell is three minutes ahead, posing a virtual threat which - as a contender for Tour de France overall victory - Seixas should find a way to solve in the remaining two mountain tests.

"We're really going to have to make the race hard. When it's not, there are guys who try to get into breakaways. Now, we're going to have to control things. There are only six of us, with two big rouleurs. It's a bit complicated, but we're doing what we can. We're really going to get into something very interesting this weekend."

The Australian neo-pro is not a completely new face in Seixas' life, but at last year's Tour de l'Avenir, their roles were quite inversed with Seixas competing for victory while Tuckwell rode to a modest top-10 result after having won the Giro Next Gen earlier in 2025.

"Honestly, I don't know (Luke) Tuckwell that much," Seixas admitted about the new yellow jersey. "He's not among the leaders, but he had a good stage. That shows he's been solid. We'll see how it goes this weekend, but it's going to be much harder."