Australian Vine solos to Vuelta stage six win, Traeen takes red jersey

Australian Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) launched a solo attack from a breakaway group in the final 20 kilometres to win stage six of the Vuelta a Espana on Thursday, with Torstein Traeen of Norway taking second place and the overall race lead.

Vine was part of a 10-man group which got away early on the 170.3km ride from Olot to Pal in Andorra, before the Australian went for broke and held off the chasers to secure the third individual Vuelta stage win of his career.

"The Vuelta wasn't on my schedule originally, so to be able to win in Andorra in front of my son and wife is unbelievable and incredibly motivating," Vine, who lives in Andorra, said.

"That last 5km, all I could think of was 'this is for you Harrison, this is for you'."

The first real mountain stage of this year's race brought the first big shake-up in the overall standings, with four of the group which escaped the peloton overtaking race favourite Jonas Vingegaard in the overall standings.

Traeen (Bahrain Victorious) came in 54 seconds behind Vine, enough to move from 26th overall to the top of the general classification, with a 31-second lead over Frenchman Bruno Armirail, who finished fourth on the stage.

Italy's Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana) was third over the line and is also third overall, while Vine's teammate Vingegaard dropped from first to fifth, two minutes and 33 seconds adrift of the new leader Traeen.

The riders were climbing from the start and the breakaway made their successful move on the first ascent, with Vine first over the summit of Collada de Sentigosa, as last year's mountains classification winner showed early signs of his climbing prowess.

Vine and his companions steadily increased their lead, overcoming the category one climb of