Rising Mexican star Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) has provided his fullest explanation to date about how he lost the 2025 Giro d'Italia to Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) on the second last day of the race.
Del Toro, 21, has had a spectacular second full year as a pro, winning 16 races in the 'official' 2025 season, and then already adding the Mexican National Time Trial and Road Race titles this October to his palmares for his 2026 tally.
However, his remarkable second place in the 2025 Giro d'Italia - as well as a stage win, several days in the lead and the Best Young Rider's jersey - could have been even better, had it not been for a controversial last-minute loss of the maglia rosa on the Colle delle Finistre to Yates.
Del Toro's failure to collaborate more fully with arch-rival Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) in chasing down Yates when the Briton attacked on the 18-kilometre Finestre, much of it unsurfaced, left the Mexican stranded behind.
He eventually lost more than five minutes to Yates and with it the pink jersey, after which Carapaz acerbically observed that "He didn't know how to race well and the guy who raced most intelligently has won."
In an extensive post-season interview with GCN Español, Del Toro has now revisited both his dramatic run of success in the Giro, but also his equally striking final defeat, admitting freely that he and his team made mistakes on the Finestre.
"That day was hard, hard mentally, because I made mistakes, I didn't do it the way I should, due to inexperience," Del Toro said.
He explained that he had forgotten on the Finestre that Yates' Visma teammate Wout van Aert was up the road and in the early break, which allowed the Belgian to then play a pivotal support role once Yates attacked on the road to Sestriere and took the Giro lead.
"Because of the pressure, I forgot about Van Aert. When Simon attacked, I was very worried, but as I had a gap on him [overall], I was more focused on Carapaz," he said.
"Then, when Simon attacked, after three weeks of racing, you know when people are playing mind games, so I decided to opt for playing it intelligently.
"But it turned out that not only was Simon ahead, but Van Aert was ahead too. That was a real shock."
Del Toro said that he thought the UAE team car, perhaps worrying that he might overreact and then crack completely, had failed to remind him that Van Aert was ahead. He also pointed out that despite the subsequent major defeat, he had "only" dropped one spot from first to second - an evaluation that could well spark debate.
"The problem was that when the radio told me Simon and Wout van Aert were ahead, Simon was already 55 seconds ahead. That was a shock to me."
"You shouldn't have told me now; you should have told me when he was 10 seconds behind or when he was riding next to me."
"It was a tactical error on my part, though, forgetting that Van Aert was ahead. Really, I knew it was possible I could lose the Giro when I heard that Simon was ahead."
In the same program, team manager Joxean Fernández Matxin also told GCN Español that although Del Toro had only raced one Grand Tour before in the 2024 Vuelta, UAE Team Emirates-XRG's pre-Giro strategy was to have Juan Ayuso and Adam Yates as co-leaders, with Brandon McNulty and Del Toro as 'semi-protected' riders.
While McNulty eventually made the top ten of a Grand Tour for the first time in his career, finishing ninth, Ayuso had to abandon after a stage win, and Yates finished 12th on GC. From the Grande Partenze in Albania onwards, Del Toro rose steadily through the overall ranks. Then on the stage to Siena across the sterrato of Tuscany, Van Aert outduelled Del Toro for the day's win, but the pink jersey went to the Mexican.
"It was a nervous stage in the sterrato because you know you can't win a Giro that day, but you can lose it," Del Toro said in the interview.
"The sports directors told us we had to be very attentive, and when I finally got the opportunity to fight for the win, whether it was at 20, 30, or 40 kilometres from the line, I took it."
"It was like something had exploded inside my head. My role up to then had been to do a bit of damage and get the time bonuses, because that was harder for Adam and Ayuso to do than it was for me. Essentially, up to then I was racing incognito."
However, once in the Giro leader's jersey, Del Toro was hardly flying under the radar anymore, and as he put it, "After various visits to the leader's podium, both the team and I realised that too I was a step ahead of what they'd thought. That's when they granted me complete freedom of maneuver."
Things could hardly have gone better for Del Toro until the very last major climb on the second last day, when he ended up being ousted from the maglia rosa and with it the chance to be Mexico's first ever Grand Tour winner.
"Anybody would sign for what I got," Del Toro pointed out. "And I would have preferred to have lost the lead by suffering.
"But unfortunately, it didn't happen like that, and that still hurts."
