Tour de France 2025 Stage 12 recap - Tadej Pogacar soars back into yellow after destroying Jonas Vingegaard at Hautacam

What a crazy Tour this is! It all happened in a flash on a small uphill section – and before we knew it, the peloton was in two and the gap growing. Things are still quite fluid but here’s the 52 riders who we think are up the road:

UAE: Wellens
Visma: Benoot
Soudal QS: Schachmann
EF: Sweeny
Intermarche: Barre, Rex
Bahrain: Buitrago, Martinez, Stannard, Wright
Ineos: Arensman, Foss, Laurance, Rodriguez, Swift
Red Bull: Pithie, Vlasov
Lidl: Nys, Skjelmose, Theuns
Groupama: Martin, Madouas, Penhoet
Alpecin: Van der Poel (of course!)
Tudor: Hirschi, Storer, Trentin, Alaphilippe
Jayco: O’Connor, Durbridge, Schmid
Arkea: Garcia, Venturini
Movistar: Castrillo, Romeo, Rubio
Decathlon: Armirail, Paret-Peintre
Cofidis: Buchmann, Coquard, Izagirre, Teuns
Astana: Tejada, Velasco
TotalEnergies: Cras. Gachignard, Turgis
IPT: Woods, Blackmore, Lutsenko
Lotto: Drizners
Uno-X: Fredheim

Spain’s Carlos Rodriguez is having a poor Tour by his standards but he has made this move along with four Ineos Grenadiers team-mates in Arensman, Foss, Laurance and Swift. Rodriguez is currently 5’44" down on GC, so he’s not a massive threat to Ben Healy and the other riders in the top 10, but he could fight right back in it if this one goes the distance – and the gap is now pushing one minute.

The polka dot jersey of Lenny Martinez is one of 45-odd riders who are on the right side of a huge split, with Healy (yellow), Milan (green) and Remco Evenepoel (white) in the second part of the peloton around 25 seconds down. This is very interesting. None of the top 10 are up the road, but there may be some compelling satellite riders involved, so let’s keep an eye on this one.

We could see a new rider in polka dots today in the first major mountains test. Currently, it’s the Frenchman Lenny Martinez who leads the KOM standings after his impressive display during the Bastille Day stage in the Massif Central on Monday.

1. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) 27pts
2. Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) 16pts
3. Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech) 11pts
4. Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 8pts
5. Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) 8pts

A poignant moment ahead of today’s roll-out from Auch…

Ben O’Connor (Jayco-AlUla) has a dig on the front and that provokes a reply from a cluster of riders, including French veterans Julian Alaphilippe and Warren Barguil. It’s no-can-do for the Aussie and now we have Israel-Premier Tech back on the front with Canada’s Michael Woods taking it up with a team-mate.

A few splits in the peloton after the combination of a little uphill dig and O’Connor’s attack stretched things out a little…

Alexey Lutsenko (Israel-Premier Tech) is the latest rider to try his luck after an earlier move by Thomas Gachignard (TotalEnergies) came to nothing. The green jersey Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and his sprint rival Biniam Girmay (Intermarche-Wanty) were both flirting with a move off the front, but that was closed down. The intermediate sprint, incidentally, comes after the first Cat.4 climb with just over 90km ridden.

And it’s Uno-X Mobility who put in the first attack, buoyed by their win yesterday. Jayco-AlUla and Intermarche are also pushing on the front, with Israel-Premier Tech and Ineos Grenadiers sniffing around, ditto Groupama-FDJ.

"I’m okay. Nothing too bad. Just my whole left arm is open. It was like burned off skin. And I hit my hip a little bit and my shoulder. But luckily I was back on the bike quite fast. Today is another day. It’s not the fist time I have crashed and continued a race. We will see how the legs are. I think my legs are more important than my arms. I hope the legs are turning well. We will see. I have a super strong team around me that support me till the end. They give all for me, so I’m grateful I can rely on them even if I have a hard day. But I hope not."

And here's a video of that interview:

The world champion also had some words in honour of Samuele Privitera, who was killed yesterday following a crash in a race in Italy.

The pro peloton was rocked with the news overnight of the death of the Hagens Berman Jayco rider Samuele Privitera, who passed away following a crash on Stage 1 of the Giro Ciclistico della Valle d’Aosta.

Out of respect for Samuele and his family, today’s stage of the Giro has been cancelled. Jayco’s senior team made this statement this morning:

The Jayco-AlUla team paid their tributes this morning at the sign-on in Auch.

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"It's just, in general, a very, very hard climb – and at 13.5km it’s a very long climb. It will take between 30 and 40 minutes to climb it. In general, I think today will be a very hard day. It depends on the legs – if you have the legs, you can try (to attack) but if you don’t have the legs, it’s more about following. I guess we’ll see on the last climb how the legs will be.

"Of course, it’s always nice to have a guy in the front who can fall back and help. I think it’s never a bad thing to have a guy in the break. There’s no hiding today – you have to go full gas today, tomorrow (for the mountain TT) and the day after (to Superbagneres)."

The riders are in Auch ahead of the neutral section of today's stage... It looks like Pogacar is in an all-white world champion's skinsuit today. He means business. But then Visma have the numerical advantage and have enjoyed previous success over the Slovenian on today's final climb to Hautacam.

Auch was the birthtown of the late Nicolas Portal, the former rider and Team Sky directeur sportif who died of a heart attack at the age of just 40 in 2020. Portal helped mastermind some of Sky’s most impressive wins during the glory years of Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas. Indeed, the Welshman, Sir Dave Brailsford and Ineos Grenadiers made this poignant tribute to Portal ahead of today’s stage.

Today’s start is in the beautiful town of Auch, the capital of the Gers department in southwest France, not far from the foothills of the Pyrenees. It’s a hot day on the Tour with the temperature already 30 degrees Celsius and not a single cloud in the sky.

Can Healy hold on at Hautacam? Time will tell. He’s been very aggressive so far in this race – plus had that nasty crash last week – so it would be a big ask for him to retain the yellow jersey today. But if the Big Two cancel each other out, the Irishman could live to see another day atop the standings. Unlikely, mind.

1. Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost)
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) +29
3. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) +1:29
4. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +1:46
5. Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) +2:06
6. Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) +2:26
7. Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) +3:24
8. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) +3:34
9. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) +3:41
10. Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) +5:03

That was the question the Breakaway team tackled after yesterday’s thrilling stage – and the overwhelming consensus was that Messrs Vingegaard and Jorgenson, although they could have benefited from Pogacar’s crash, did the right thing in following Ben Healy’s lead and waiting for the fallen rider to return from his crash, which occurred outside the 3km mark and so could have cost him dear.

Here’s how the world champion hit the deck yesterday – a clipping of handlebars as Tobias Johannessen followed the moves on the right-hand side of the road as the very moment Pogacar was on the radio and had one of his hands free.

It could have been worse – Ben Healy may have not used his status as the yellow jersey and urged everyone else to knock it off while Pogacar rode back on – and UAE will have counted their lucky stars last night. Tests showed that Pogacar has no significant injuries – just a bump to the hip and some road rash on his left arm. But it remains to be seen whether the fall has a negative effect on him today in the Pyrenees.

For his part, Johannessen went to lengths to apologise for his unwitting part in the incident – and it’s nice to see that the Norwegian’s apology was graciously accepted by Pogacar, who insisted it was nothing but a race incident.