Tour of Britain: Poels wins on Whinlatter Pass

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The pinewooded climb of Whinlatter Pass was expected to prove decisive in the Tour of Britain and the final ascent provided the perfect springboard for Julian Alaphilippe, who made a full-throttle assault on the general classification in the Tour of Britain at the expense of race leader Primoz Roglic, with Team Sky's Wout Poels taking the stage.

The 3.2km ascent was tackled twice in the opposite direction to the previous stage's team time trial won by Roglic's LottoNL-Jumbo team, albeit with the same finish line, and with the first time up merely a leg-softener, Alaphilippe waited until 2.1km to go on the wooded slopes before making his move, after a massive effort from his team mate Bob Jungels had done the initial damage.

While EF Education-First Drapac's Hugh Carthy joined the Frenchman in setting an aggressive pace at the front, Roglic clung grimly to their wheels, with Poels biding his time a few metres behind until he had settled into his rhythm. With 1.4km remaining, Roglic gave best, and was unable even to maintain a decent tempo as he dropped rapidly back to a second group including the likes of Scott Davies from Dimension Data and Tom Pidcock (Team Wiggins).

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Poels linked up with Carthy and Alaphilippe just inside a kilometre to go, then waited briefly for the perfect moment to attack to take the fourth Tour of Britain stage win of his career, surging round the tight right-hand bend into the finish straight 2sec ahead of the Frenchman.

This was the third summit finish he has taken in this race after victories at Hartside and Haytor, and it enabled him to leapfrog over Roglic and move into second overall, 17sec behind Alaphilippe, who dropped Carthy to take second place and a useful 6sec time bonus.

"Bob did an incredible effort for me," said Alaphilippe, who had won the stage into Bristol on Tuesday. "I tried to attack to get a gap, I was riding to get the jersey. Wout Poels was fresher than me, so I'm not disappointed."

Before the start, the word in the caravan was that Sky and Quick-Step Floors would attempt to split the field in pieces when the road turned left after 2.5 kilometres to go alongside Morecambe Bay, with a strong north-westerly breeze blowing from the right. Around 40 riders were stuck in the second split, including Jasha Sutterlin, lying seventh overall, and Dimitri Strahov, 11th overall. The gap rose to 45 seconds before the first sprint of the day after 11km, where Alaphilippe snaffled three seconds and Jungels two.

Shortly afterwards, Alaphilippe and Roglic were involved in a minor pile-up, which caused the leading bunch to sit up, permitting the back markers to regain contact, while up front the day's escape formed. It included two former world time trial champions in Tony Martin and Vasil Kiriyenka, the British national champion Conor Swift, and Lotto-Soudal's British rider James Shaw, the best placed overall in 24th.

Lotto let the move have its head, but were more concerned about a seven-rider chasing group which set off during the regrouping, including Scott Thwaites, Matti Breschel, Rory Townsend, Enrico Barbin and Rob Power. The Dutch team put in a concerted effort to bring the septet to heel by the first King of the Mountains climb at Hawkshead, after which the stage settled down, with Matt Holmes and Nicholas Dlamini duking it out for King of the Mountains points behind the break, as the peloton waited for those two climbs of Whinlatter.

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