The Tour de France is not over yet. On stage 6, Tadej Pogachar, who suffered an unexpected crash on the first mountain stage to Larns on Wednesday, regained 28 of the 1:04 lost by his great rival for the maillot jaune, Jonas Vingegaard, on the road to Cortale.

A day after Jai Hindley escaped with a time advantage of more than two and a half minutes, the race will cross the Pyrenees tonight. But before the Puy de Dome on stage 9, the gap to Pogachar was down to 25 seconds.

Vingegaard and his Jumbo Visma team again disrupted the race on the Col du Tourmalet midway through the stage, losing Hindley and being selected at the back of the breakaway group before a two-man battle on the final climb.

The finish may not have gone his way, but neither Vingegaard nor his Dutch team regret the way they ran the stage. After all, they are now the race leaders.

"Obviously I wanted to attack in Tourmalet," Wingegaard said at the post-race press conference. 'I don't know if I needed the energy. He was stronger today.

Sepp Kuss, the climbing super-domestique who had a great day in Tourmalet and is now up to 10th overall, agreed, adding that the tactics of the day would depend on whether he could use Wout Van Aert for the break of the day.

"I wanted a hard pace, especially in Tourmalet," Kuss said after the stage. 'I wanted to pace hard, especially in Tourmalet.'

"We ended up going two by two, as usual. From what I heard over the radio, they were in a one-on-one battle. We definitely don't want to lose those few seconds. But we need to be satisfied with the intent we gained in this stage. If different circumstances arise, it could be the other way around."

Vingegaard, who will enjoy the yellow for the 11th day of his career on Friday's sprint to Bordeaux, said he is "happy to be back in the legendary jersey."

He may have lost precious seconds to his main rival for the Tour's top prize, but the fact remains that even if he fell off Pogachar's wheels 2.7 km from the finish line.

"First of all, I'm really happy to be back in the yellow jersey," Vingegaard said. 'It's always nice to wear such a nice jersey. Of course, I wish I could have at least stayed with Taddeusi, but he was really strong on the last climb. I would have liked to have taken the stage too."

Pogachar's fightback was no surprise, either. Of course, Pogachar, the leader of UAE Team Emirates, had been behind even more in the later stages three years ago.

His performance in Thursday's 16km finisher dispelled the notion that Vingegaard would go far in yellow due to a wrist injury and few racing days before the Tour.

"I think Pogachar was a fighter yesterday. He rode impressively, but I think we could have been happy with the way the race unfolded.

Vingegaard added of Pogachar's ability to fight back. He was in good form today and I wanted to give it a go. He was clearly strong and deserved to win. This year's Tour de France is going to be exciting."