Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) used a solo attack on the final 3.5km of the Frontignano climb to win stage 6 of Tirreno-Adriatico and take over the race lead.
From a select group of four chasers, Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) finished second and Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) took third, both 13 seconds back. Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep) and Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) rounded out the top five.
Ayuso used a set of three accelerations on the final climb to pass a disintegrating breakaway group of eight riders, drop top contenders and move into the overall race lead ahead of Sunday's closing sprint stage in San Benedetto del Tronto.
Former leader Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) finished just outside the top 10 at 50 seconds back, allowing him to cling to an overall podium position with one day to race. Ganna dropped to third on GC, 38 seconds behind Ayuso and just one second behind second-placed Tiberi.
"We worked really well. The team did an amazing job. The last k or so I suffered a bit but I'm glad I made it," Ayuso said after the finish.
"In the final we knew we had to make it hard. It was quite windy, and on a wheel you could save a lot. I am glad I got on the wheel of [Isaac] Del Toro because I was really suffering on his wheel, but everybody else was [suffering] also.
"I just went for it and I knew I just had to put in my tempo to the top."
The stage 6 triumph marked the third victory of the 2025 season for Ayuso, having won a pair of one-day races in early March, including Trofeo Laigueglia a week ago.
With time gained on the mountaintop ascent, Hindley moved from 12th on GC to fifth, while Pidcock moved nine spots to sixth and Landa jumped to seventh. Hindley remained fourth overall, but lost 8 seconds and sits four seconds behind Ganna.
How it unfolded
The penultimate stage of Tirreno-Adriatico would be the final chance for the riders battling for the famous Trident trophy to make an impact on the general classification. Stage 6 would take the riders 163km from Cartoceto to Frontignano, a day held on rolling roads aside from the 7.7km, 7.8% summit finish.
Attacks flew from the start of the day, with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), but a move wouldn't go clear until 15km of racing with Van der Poel's teammate Gianni Vermeersch lead the aggression.
Vermeersch was joined in the break by stage 3 winner Andrea Vendrame (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Samuele Battistella (EF Education-EasyPost), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek), Andrea Pietrobon (Polti-VisitMalta), and Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility).
The group of six took an advantage of 2:30 over the hilly early ground of the opening 50km, Ineos Grenadiers commanding a steady pace at the front of the peloton behind.
Vendrame, who started the day 2:35 behind race leader Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), moved into the virtual lead by a slim margin as the middle section of the stage commenced, another 50km block before the substantial rise of 5.6km, at 5% average gradient to Crispiero.
Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) and Chris Hamilton (Picnic-PostNL) attacked with 145km to go bridging across to join the front of the race. With just under 100km remaining, the gap moved out to 3:30 for the breakaway.
Once the leaders pushed the gap out to 4:30 with 80km to go, but the peloton, driven by Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Q36.5, took a little more interest and began to recover some of that time. Pietrobon took the five points on offer at the KOM across Crispiero, while the gap for the front group dropped to 3:10.
The eight riders worked well together as undulating roads steered towards the only intermediate sprint of the day, Pieve Torina, a small town in the Monti Sibillini National Park that signalled the all-out climbing across the final 20km to the summit finish at Frontignano. Vendrame scored five points for the maglia ciciamino plus three bonus seconds.
With 19km to go, the leaders passed over an unclassified climb at Le Fornaci with the lead down to 2:32 thanks to the pace-setting of Israel-Premier Tech and UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and light rain began to fall.
Over the next 10km, the teams of the main contenders, including Bahrain Victorious with top 10 riders Antonio Tiberi and Pello Bilbao, trimmed the lead to just one minute.
With 5km to go the pace picked up behind the lead group, which had lost Thomas and Pietrobon. Over the next kilometre, only Vendrame remained at the front and he was caught and passed on the ascent by Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
Joining them was a swarm of riders in a stretched-out group that included Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech), Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Tom Pidcock (Q36.5).
Ayuso continued to turn up the gas and put daylight between him and chasers, but more significantly he put more than 40 seconds into race leader Ganna to become the virtual race leader with 3km to go.
The chase group was reduced to four riders who then battled for the final two spots on the podium, with Pidcock coming out on top in the closing sprint.
Results
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