Isaac del Toro seizes UAE Tour lead with exhibition on Jebel Hafeet

Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is the new leader of the UAE Tour after an emphatic victory atop Jebel Hafeet on stage 6. Red jersey Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) put up fierce resistance to Del Toro’s initial combination of accelerations, but he had to yield to his supersonic pace on the steepest ramps of the climb.

It was another sobering day for Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who was dropped from the red jersey group with 5km to go, shortly before Del Toro launched his stinging series of attacks.

After teammate Adam Yates had set the pace in a much-reduced red jersey group, Del Toro kicked with considerable force with 4.2km to go, ripping clear of everybody bar Tiberi, who latched tightly onto his wheel. The pairing quickly surged past earlier attackers Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA GCM) and Harold Tejada (XDS-Astana), with Del Toro weaving from side to side in a bid to break Tiberi’s resistance.

Tiberi battled gamely to keep holding Del Toro’s wheel in the face of this ferocious onslaught, but it felt only a matter of time before the Mexican would gain separation, with steeper ramps still to come.

Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla), who had kept his powder dry through the earlier skirmishes, bridged up to Del Toro and Tiberi with 3km to go. Almost immediately, Del Toro kicked again with real intensity, this time opening a gap over Tiberi, who finally had to surrender to the UAE rider’s intensity.

Plapp would place second at 12 seconds, with Gall taking third place at 21 seconds, while Tiberi paid a price for his initial attempt to follow Del Toro, coming home over half a minute down to concede the red jersey to the Mexican.

In the overall standings, Del Toro will carry a lead of 20 seconds over Tiberi into Sunday’s final stage, while Plapp is now third at 1:14.

The final climb to Jebel Hafeet was preceded by almost 100 miles of flat road, and the entertainment on that long preamble was provided by escapees Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon CMA CGM), Axel Huens, Johan Jacobs (Groupama-FDJ United), Josh Tarling, Peter Øxenberg (Ineos), Mark Stewart (Modern Adventure) and Mattia Gaffuri (Picnic-PostNL).

This was no gentle prologue to the main action, mind, with the break averaging a blistering 51kph through the first two hours of racing. The pace didn’t relent on the rapid run-in to the foot of the final climb, where the peloton was lined out as it bore down on Tarling et al before the first ramps of Jebel Hafeet.

The gap was down to a minute by the foot of the climb, where Tarling pulled Øxenberg clear of the break, while UAE Team Emirates-XRG set a fearsome pace in the peloton on behalf of Del Toro.

7.5km from the top, Decathlon CMA CGM took over on behalf of Gall, and Gregor Muhlberger’s efforts broke up the red jersey group, with Evenepoel briefly distanced, though a lull in pace saw the Belgian and others latch back on.

Shortly afterwards, Evenepoel launched a tentative acceleration of his own, with Tiberi immediately snuffing it out. 

Gall was the next man to go, attacking with Tejada on his wheel with 6km to go, just as Øxenberg was caught, while Adam Yates took over the pace-making in the red jersey group for Del Toro.

That pace would prove too much for Evenepoel, who was definitively dropped with 5km to go. If his travails at Jebel Mobrah could have been written off as a blip, this second subdued mountaintop showing will be a cause of greater concern for Evenepoel and his Red Bull team.

The race for the red jersey would go on without him, with Del Toro on the cusp of the first WorldTour stage race win of his career with just Sunday’s flat finale in Abu Dhabi still to come.