PREVIEW | Tour de France 2025 stage 6 - Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar main favourites for explosive hilly stage

Tadej Pogacar has taken over the yellow jersey and we enter a new Tour de France. We preview stage 6, a threatening day in which we find a hilltop finish in Vire and where we may see a few more gaps in the steep uphill finish.

The third punchy finish of the first week, in Normandie now. It's a tricky first week to the Tour and it keeps delivering profiles that should see quite an exciting finale. It's another 200+ stage with an early intermediate sprint that could set up quite a lot of action. Later on not only the sprinters will be in action, but also the GC riders and the classics specialists - even if a breakaway can also potentially succeed on the day.

With 11.5 kilometers to go there is a 750-meter long ramp at 9% that will really kick off the finale. Right after this, teams will continue to push hard to remain in the head of the peloton up to the next ascent where we may seriously see a few dangerous attacks. 1.2 kilometers at 7.2% with 4 kilometers to go and then

A very quick descent and flat section lead into the final 700 meters ramp up at 10% towards the finish line, which may see a mix of climbers, classics riders and sprinters fight for the win.

Some northeastern wind. We should have crosswinds in the first hour of the race followed by some tailwind. In the final 30 kilometers of the day we'll mostly have headwinds, whilst this does not apply to the final climbs. Breakaways will be favoured, as long as there is a strong group.

Mathieu van der Poel - On paper another stage perfectly suited to him. Although I recon that the steep ramp to the line will favour Pogacar more, specially after seeing how stage 4 unfolded. Alpecin are the team that have the most reason to chase and with Silvan Dillier present they certainly might want to do that. On the other hand van der Poel has won a stage already, has spent time in yellow... I wouldn't be too surprised to see him trying to be part of a breakaway IF we see that there are many strong riders trying to go up the road - if they do, then it's certain that the stage won't be battled between those behind, it's a tough day to chase and no other teams will want to do so.

Tadej Pogacar - UAE now have the race lead, will they want to keep it? Often times they do because it's important for the sponsor, so we may see them spend long kilometers in front just to make sure they keep it but not wanting to burn off their important men and so letting the breakaway go. If the breakaway isn't strong, then they have reason to collaborate with Alpecin in chasing it down, as Pogacar will likely be the strongest in this finale, it is an explosive ramp to the line but a steep uphill sprint which will put him over van der Poel whilst obviously being above the other climbers too.

GC fight - This will be another fast and furious finish. A tough day all-in-all, but the tricky finish means we'll have a crazy leadout battle into the penultimate climb - and then in some way shape or form, not too different into the final ramp with whoever the teams have left. If it's peloton, the level of Pogacar and van der Poel is simply too high and the win won't come from elsewhere. But of course you will have in the mix Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Matteo Jorgenson, Kévin Vauquelin, João Almeida, Primoz Roglic, Florian Lipowitz, Mattias Skjelmose, Oscar Onley, Enric Mas, Santiago Buitrago, Aurélien Paret-Peintre, Tobias Johannessen, Felix Gall... All of the GC riders will want to finish as best as possible and avoid time losses, so everyone will want to be at the front at all times.

Breakaway? - Yes we could see it, it's a 200+ kilometer long stage with plenty hills, a rolling start, two overwhelming unmatched favourites... Yes, the first of week of Grand Tours in modern cycling sees teams sometimes be incomprehensibly conservative but I think now on stage 6 we may already see those tactics change. The puncheurs and classics riders, men suited to this stage, also know they simply cannot beat a rider like Pogacar or surprise with a late attack, so a breakaway has to be the way to go - or well, I believe most teams will have realized this already. If not, they will continue to miss out on the hoped results. Sure, you could say Romain Grégoire and Julian Alaphilippe could wait and try their luck as they've shown brilliant form in these opening days, but that's it.

We could see Visma in action to be honest, I would expect Wout van Aert to give it a shot and try to be in the breakaway, although he'd be heavily marked later on if so and it'll be a hard day to win. It's a day for classics riders really, you need to climb well but having a big engine and great capacity to ride on the flat roads could prove crucial for a tactical race in the finale if it's to go for the front group.

Ben Healy, Neilson Powless, Alex Baudin (EF), Louis Barré (Intermarché), Lenny Martínez, Matej Mohoric (Bahrain), Axel Laurance, Sam Watson (INEOS Grenadiers), Thibau Nys, Quinn Simmons, Toms Skujins (Lidl), Quentin Pacher, Valentin Madouas (Groupama), Marc Hirschi (Tudor), Mauro Schmid, Ben O'Connor (Jayco), Pablo Castrillo, Iván Romeo (Movistar), Bastien Tronchon, Bruno Armirail (AG2R), Harold Tejada, Clément Champoussin, Simone Velasco (Astana), Michael Woods, Alexey Lutsenko (Israel), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X), Lennert van Eetvelt and Jenno Berckmoes (Lotto) are all men to watch.

*** Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel
** Mauro Schmid, Quinn Simmons, Alexey Lutsenko, Alex Baudin, Marc Hirschi
* Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Kévin Vauquelin, João Almeida, Oscar Onley, Wout van Aert, Neilson Powless, Ben Healy, Axel Laurance, Quinn Simmons, Quentin Pacher, Pablo Castrillo, Bruno Armirail, Simone Velasco, Michael Woods, Jenno Berckmoes

Pick: Mauro Schmid

How: I trust that we'll see the first breakaway win. Many teams just HAVE TO, and at this point the GC gaps are so big that this must be their priority. Dozens of riders should attack early on, form a strong group, and then have an interesting battle to the line.