Jonas Vingegaard performed at a high level again, pedalling to his second Tirreno-Adriatico stage win, dropping Jai Hindley and Juan Ayuso after the Australian opened the attacks on Monte Petrano.
After a strong performance on the San Giacomo climb, Jonas Vingegaard was the huge favourite for Monte Petrano (10.2 km, 7.9%), which suited him even more as it is much steeper than the 6% gradient shallow San Giacomo. Thymen Arensman before the final climb burned 3,912 kilojoules over 4:02h, which is 13.83 kj/kg/h. That is a lot of fatigue accumulated on shorter climbs.
Visma-Lease a Bike and Jonas Vingegaard did not need to do anything as Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale and Bora-Hansgrohe were pacing hard on the first part of Monte Petrano. Ben O’Connor and Jai Hindley were fighting for the remaining podium positions, starting the stage close in GC. It was Hindley who first attacked, with Vingegaard and Juan Ayuso following him. More than a minute later the Dane launched a long and powerful sprint dropping both rivals – Ayuso tried his best but could not hold the wheel.
Vingegaard did a similar performance as on Stage 5. He climbed Monte Petrano in 27:17, pushing 6.64 ᵉW/Kg. San Giacomo was 6.68 ᵉW/Kg for 26:05 but with a huge negative split after the attack. In 2009 Carlos Sastre did the same segment in 28:42 min, winning Giro d’Italia 2009 Stage 16 but the climbing segment used in 2024 was 200 metres shorter. Vingegaard was 1:25 min faster than Sastre on the segment but in the 2009 Giro it was done after a hard 237 kilometre mountain stage.
Ayuso and Hindley performed at a high level, pushing 6.44 ᵉW/Kg for 27:43 min. Isaac del Toro dropped early but in Joao Almeida style caught the Pidcock group, where the Brit was pulling for his teammate Arensman. Del Toro in the end accelerated and finished a few seconds behind Ayuso, doing 6.39 ᵉW/Kg. Pidcock did his one of the best climbing performances and despite pacing, finished fifth with 6.41 ᵉW/Kg for 27:59 min.
Stage 7 will be for sprinters and if nothing changes Vingegaard will win his third WorldTour one-week stage race, after dominating Dauphiné and Basque Country in the 2023 season. Del Toro at age 20 is fourth in the GC ahead of big names, while Pidcock will finally finish in Top 10 in a WorldTour stage race GC.
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Ayuso had to give himself a good warm-up on the previous climb eeeeh? He was forced to waste some energy there.