Jay Vine solos to stage 6 win at La Vuelta 2025 but Ayuso explodes and Almeida struggles on mixed day for UAE Team Emirates

On a mixed day for UAE Team Emirates - XRG at the 2025 Vuelta a Espana, Jay Vine has soloed to the stage win and into the King of the Mountains jersey, but Juan Ayuso has exploded out of GC contention with Joao Almeida also struggling to match Jonas Vingegaard and Giulio Ciccone.

Stage 6 opened straight uphill with the Collada de Sentigosa (11.1km at 4.2%), ensuring a furious fight for the day’s breakaway. Attacks came and went, but it was only on the upper slopes that a significant move was finally established.

Ten riders forced clear — Jay Vine, Lorenzo Fortunato, Louis Vervaeke, Bruno Armirail, Torstein Traeen, Pablo Castrillo, Gianmarco Garofoli, Ramses Debruyne, Archie Ryan and James Shaw — forming the day’s escape. Vine underlined his intent by cresting the Sentigosa first, ahead of Vervaeke and Fortunato.

At that stage the peloton, marshalled by Team Visma | Lease a Bike, was in no hurry. With Jonas Vingegaard in the red jersey, the Dutch squad appeared content to allow the move space, keeping the gap steady at around 30 seconds before gradually relaxing the leash on the long drag of the Collada de Toses (24.4km at 3.5%). Vervaeke led Vine and Fortunato across the top there, collecting valuable mountain points and moving into the virtual KOM lead.

The breakaway pressed on in worsening conditions as rain fell on the descent, but with Visma holding a consistent rhythm behind, their advantage only grew. By 70 kilometres to go the lead was more than four minutes, and as the roads began to dry under patchy sunshine, the stage was firmly tilting in the escapees’ favour.

The gap ballooned further — beyond five minutes at 55 kilometres to go, then close to six minutes as the race entered Andorra with 40 kilometres left. On paper, that meant several riders in the move — Traeen, Armirail, Vervaeke and Fortunato — were moving into the virtual red jersey.

Yet the peloton’s lack of urgency told its own story, and the sense grew that Visma were deliberately ceding the race lead. It is a familiar Grand Tour tactic: allowing the breakaway to take the jersey in order to relieve the defending champion of daily obligations, from media duties to podium ceremonies, while conserving energy for the high mountains to come.

As the Alto de la Comella (4.2km at 8%) loomed, the peloton finally raised the pace, cutting the deficit back to 5:50. By the summit, the gap was down to five minutes, but with less than 30 kilometres remaining, the chase was far too late to threaten the escape. Up front, all ten riders remained together as nerves built ahead of the decisive final climb. With 22 kilometres to go, the break was intact, while Visma’s pace-setting had trimmed their advantage to four minutes.

The first real move came not on the Comella itself, but on its descent, when Jay Vine launched clear, opening a slender gap of around 15 seconds over his fellow escapees. He carried that momentum towards the final climb, Alto de Pal (9.6km at 6.5%), with the situation at the base reading: Vine out front, the chasing group at 25 seconds, and the peloton at four minutes.

By 10km to go, the Aussie had extended that advantage at the front to 57 seconds on the chase and back out over five minutes on the peloton. By 5km to go, with Vine well on the final climb of the day, his lead was over a minute. In the chase meanwhile, Traeen had attacked clear and began his hunt of not only Vine but also the Red Jersey. In the peloton meanwhile, Juan Ayuso was struggling and dropped from the GC group.

With Vine cruising to the stage win and Traeen into the race lead, Giulio Ciccone and Jonas Vingegaard were looking to put further pressure on UAE after Ayuso's show of weakness as they attacked clear of their GC rivals.