Mustafa Sayar (Konya) made it the perfect day for the Turkish home crowd as he took a convincing solo win in the hard summit finish on the 6th day of racing in the Tour of Turkey. With his win the 24-year old Turk takes over the lead from Natnael Berhane (Europcar).

Before today's hard summit finish in the 6th stage of the Tour of Turkey 2nd placed Kevin Seeldraeyers (Astana) did not point to overall leader Natnael Berhane as his most dangerous rivals. Instead he said that he saw most reason to fear 3rd placed Mustafa Sayar.

The prediction proved to be correct as the 24-year old home favourite soloed off the front on the 5,25km climb to the finish in Selcuk. He took a convincing win and took over the overall lead from Berhane in the process.

The Konya rider showed his intentions at the bottom of the climb as he asked teammated Serguei Grechyn to set a hard tempo on the lower slopes. The acceleration reduced the size of the peloton drastically as riders fell off in large numbers.

With 4km to go Grechyn dropped off and Sayar was reluctant to attack this early. As the favourites started to look at each other, a Bardiani rider attacked and build up a small gap.

Moments later Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) put in the first dangerous attack as the Frenchman started the day only 43 seconds behind in 10th. He passed the Bardiani rider and build up a huge advantage while Jose Pimenta (NetApp) chased behind.

This was the signal for Sayar to put in his acceleration. At first he was joined by Berhane and Yoann Bagot (Cofidis) but as he accelerated further the duo dropped off. He quickly passed Pimenta and moments later he had joined Edet at the front.

The Frenchman fought hard to stay in contact with the Konya rider but after a few hundred meters he had to  let his companion go. Meanwhile, Berhane and Bagot had both been caught by the small group of favourites and the Eritrean leader now chased valiantly and was assisted by Brice Feillu (Sojasun) in his work.

Rory Sutherland (Saxo-Tinkoff) and Bagot attacked moments later but the Australian was not able to keep up with the Frenchman who set off in pursuit of Sayar and his teammate Edet. He passed the latter and as he approached the top, he seemed to get closer to the lone Konya rider in the lead.

The climb was, however, too short for the Frenchman to catch the leader and Sayar took a fantastic victory in his home race. Bagot was 2nd 18 second behind while Edet finished a further 5 seconds later.

Behind Sutherland had been caught by the favourite group which was getting smaller as they started to sprint for the line. One of the riders to get dropped was Berhane who finished no less than 43 seconds behind Sayar. As a consequence he lost the lead and dropped to second overall 41 second behind the new Turkish leader of the race.

The big loser today was Seeldraeyers who ended up losing more than a minute and fell out of the overall top 10.

Sayar will now try to defend his jersey in the remaining two stages. They are, however, both flat and he should get plenty of assistance from the sprinters' teams who have been looking forward to the expected bunch sprints for days.

Starting at 13.15 you can follow the 7th stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

Two riders move away

The 182km stage from Bodrum to Selcuk was regarded as the final opportunity for the GC riders to take over the lead from Berhane but with a hard uphill finish it was certainly not impossible to threaten the young Eritrean rider. From the gun his team came under pressure as plenty of attacks went clear in the early part of the race.

For a moment a dangerous 14-rider move containing the likes of Filippo Pozzato (Lampre), Mikhail Ignatiev (Katusha) and Matteo Trentin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) were ahead but the group was deemed too dangerous and caught just a few moments later. Instead it was the two sprinters Cristian Delle Stelle (Bardiani) and Aldo Ino Ilesic (UnitedHealthCare) who were allowed to go clear and they built up a gap of almost 10 minutes.

Berhane's Europcar team and the Sojasun squad of Jonathan Hivert, Maxime Mederel and Feillu started to chase and they quickly brought down the gap to less than 7 minutes. To avoid an early capture the teams eased off and in a few kilometres the advantage grew back up to reach the 9 minute mark.

5 teams chase hard

This was the signal for the Astana team to start their chase as they hoped that Seeldraeyers could take the overall win by a solid performance today. Sojasun once again contributed and Cofidis with Bagot and Edet as their GC captains also decided to join the work. The pace picked up and the gap started to drop rapidly.

With 42km to go the Colombia team of Darwin Atapuma also decided to take their share of the responsibility and with no less than 5 teams chasing it was evident that the duo had no chance. When Omega Pharma-Quick Step even tried to split the peloton in a crosswind section the break was doomed and with 30km to go it was all back together.

Attacks on the penultimate climb

As they approached the day's penultimate climb the Colombia team took over the complete responsibility and they set a hard tempo on the lower slopes to make the race hard. Rafael Andriato (Vini Fantini), Kevin Peeters (Crelan) and Anthony Delaplace (Sojasun) disrupted the work of the South Americans by a gutsy move but as Orica-GreenEdge accelerated over the top of the climb it was all back together.

Battle for position

The Australian team kept a high pace on the descent to make sure that their captain Cameron Meyer was well-placed for the day's final climb. As they approached the bottom, the battle for position was intense as more and more teams started to line up their captains in a good position.

On the lower slopes it was the Astana team of Seeldraeyers who hit the front and riders started to drop off in large numbers. It was, however, a short-lived effort from the Kazakh team and instead it was Grechyn who took over at the front. His work prepared the attack from Sayar which ended up giving the Turkish rider the win and the overall lead.

Result:

1. Mustafa Sayar

2. Yoann Bagot +0.18

3. Nicolas Edet +0.23

4. Danail Petrov +0.28

5. Darwin Atapuma +0.30

6. Jonathan Hivert +0.30

7. Serge Pauwels +0.30

8. Cameron Meyer +0.30

9. Florian Guillou +0.33

10. Marc De Maar +0.33

General classification:

1. Mustafa Sayar

2. Natnael Berhane +0.41

3. Yoann Bagot +0.44

4. Maxime Mederel +0.57

5. Nicolas Edet +1.00

6. Cameron Meyer +1.02

7. Darwin Atapuma +1.08

8. Florian Guillou +1.09

9. Danail Petrov +1.13

10. Rory Sutherland +1.15