Adam Yates vowed to return to the UAE Tour with a summit finish on Jebel Hafeet Sunday, dropping race leader Lemko Evenpoel and setting the fastest climbing time ever.

Yates clocked 25:53 on the tough 10.7km climb, beating by 4 seconds the time he and Tadey Pogachar set on Jebel Hafeet in 2021.

Pogachar won that day, but two years later Yates repeated his 2020 victory on the most iconic climb of the UAE Tour.

The win put Yates one second ahead of Pero Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) for third place overall and a podium finish. However, in a fierce three-way battle for second place behind overall winner Evenpoel, Yates was unable to take second place from Luke Plapp, who was only one second behind.

UAE Team Emirates, without two-time winner Pogachar, got off to a very tough start for a home race after being caught in a crosswind on the first stage.

However, the home team made an impressive comeback on Thursday as Juan Sebastian Morano took a stage win and the team standings, ending the day in the best possible way for Yates.

"I told someone at the beginning of the day, we had nothing to lose," Yates told reporters after the race.

"We had lost so much ground in the GC that if we tried something at the bottom and it didn't work out, we could still contend for the (stage) win."

"The guys did a great job. For the first 10 minutes or so I was on full throttle with the rest of the team.

Yates was in perfect position, especially with the support of teammates Stake Vegal Langen and Brandon McNulty, after the UAE had shredded the field down to a few dozen riders.

"I attacked once and could only chase Lemko and Sepp Kus (Jumbo-Visma). So I decided to attack one more time.

"When I attacked the second time, it was the steepest part of the climb, so I thought it was the best moment.

"And then after the corner it flattens out a little bit, so I thought I could rest a little bit. But there was a headwind. But in the end I just kept pushing.

When asked if he was afraid of the world champion when they cleared, Yates said he was never overly concerned about Evenpole's presence. Rather, Yates had a 1:14 advantage on Yates before the stage, and with less than half of the climb to go, there was only so much damage the Brit could do, barring a catastrophe. [He knew what he had to do. He knew that the other players on GC were behind him. I was well behind him on GC, and with three or four kilometers to go on the climb, he wasn't going to lose a minute. But I attacked one more time and managed to make it work."

In discussing breaking Jebel Hafit's record, Yates said that he did not particularly feel that he had raced at a particularly high power.

"It's always the same kind of thing, and the last couple of Taday's I tried to drop him, but that was pretty difficult too.

"As for power, I haven't checked yet, but it's probably similar. The conditions could be a little better."

Of course, what has changed since 2021 is that Pogachar and he now race for the same team, which Yates, as a UAE Team Emirates racer, said was a notable success.

"Even before I joined the team, they trusted me, believed in me, and wanted me to win. So it's a pleasure for me to run for the team. So it's a pleasure for me to run for the team.