Eddie Dunbar opens Ventoux masterclass by Ineos Grenadiers | Video

Eddie Dunbar hit the front on the lower slopes of Mont Ventoux today at Tour de la Provence to begin what became an Ineos Grenadiers master class in climbing and tactics.

At the end of the stage it was Ivan Sosa who took victory and race lead for the British WorldTour team, with his team mate Egan Bernal in 2^nd and Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) in 3^rd.

Dunbar took it up first on the climb, with about 9km to go, and stayed on the front setting a high pace in order to catch the remaining riders up the road from the early breakaway and others who had attacked at the start of the ascent.

Dunbar did his job in mopping up all of those ahead before his team mate Carlos Rodriguez took over; the young Spanish rider pounding away on the front for about 3km and ripping the field apart.

When he pulled over with 4.8km to go there were fewer than 20 riders left and the moment his work was done Ivan Sosa attacked, with Egan Bernal leaving it to the others to chase.

Mauri Vansevenant (Deceuninck-QuickStep) took up that chase, on behalf of Julian Alaphilippe, with the group now down to about 10 riders.

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Vansevenant rode on the front for over 1km and at 3.5km
to go, with Sosa leading by about 20 seconds, it was Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana) who attacked.

However, just as the Russian looked like he was going to ride away from the group in pursuit of Sosa, Alaphilippe attacked and went straight passed Vlasov.

Bernal reacted and got onto Alaphilippe’s
wheel, with Wout Poels (Bahrain) getting across to them at 2.3km, as Sosa led
by 19 seconds.

Poels immediately went to the front to
aid Alaphilippe, though Sosa held them at 20 seconds. At just over 1km
to go Bernal attacked, though he was covered by Alaphilippe as Poels was
dropped.

Sosa went on to win the stage solo, with Bernal jumping
Alaphilippe in the sprint and beating him for 2^nd, with the world
champion 3^rd and Poels 4^th followed by a seven-man group.

Sosa took victory by 15 seconds from Bernal, with
Alaphilippe at 18 seconds, Poels at 29 seconds and Jesus Herrada of Cofidis
leading in the seven-man group at 48 seconds.

Sosa now leads the race by 19 seconds from Bernal with Alaphilippe
in 3^rd at 21 seconds with just one stage remaining.

In the end, Dunbar finished in 65th at 10:23, with Nicolas Roche of Team DSM in 50th at 6:07 on a day when the field was spread over 23 minutes.