Astana keep on rolling as Lorenzo Fortunato takes stage 2 win at Tour de Romandie 2025

Lorenzo Fortunato has given XDS Astana Team another boost in their fight against World Tour relegation, winning stage 2 of the 2025 Tour de Romandie ahead of Alex Baudin and William Junior Lecerf after a late attack saw most of the GC contenders lose time.

After quite a big fight for the break in the early portion of the stage, five riders eventually got themselves up the road with some notable names among them too. The total, the break was: Ben Zwiehoff (Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe), Welay Hagos Berhe (Team Jayco AlUla), Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek), Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost) and Raúl García Pierna (Arkéa - B&B Hotels).

Carthy proved strongest of the break, surviving the longest as an ever-diminishing peloton began to reel in the attackers as they upped the pace on the climbs of Les Grattes and Chaumont. With 47km to go though, the Brit too had been swallowed up by the GC group.

As the counter attacks then followed the catch of Carthy, a group of 19 riders were clear of the rest of the race heading into the final 30km, with pre-race contenders Remco Evenepoel, Joao Almeida, Carlos Rodriguez, Lenny Martinez, Oscar Onley, Eddie Dunbar and Lennert van Eetvelt all among the number. With the cohesion somewhat expectedly not the best though, attacks were soon reignited at the front once again.

With these attacks, a five-man counter group of Van Eetvelt, Lorenzo Fortunato, Alex Baudin, Juan Pedro Lopez and William Junior Lecerf broke free at the front, gaining almost a minutes lead by the time they moved through 20km to go. At 10km to go, it was still around steady at 1:13, meaning the five leaders had a great chance for the stage win.

Having extended their advantage to more than 1:20 as they reached the final 3km, the stage win was secured. With Baudin and Van Eetvelt both having started the day 15 seconds down, Lecerf at 18 Lopez at 26 and Fortunato 38 seconds down though, there was still a leader's jersey to fight for in the finale. In the end it was Fortunato that opened things up early and the Italian managed to hold on ahead of Baudin and Lecerf.