The disbelief in Horner’s voice was unmistakable. Horner argued that such minimal communication was indefensible under the pressure of a Grand Tour summit finish: “He should have been reminded and reminded and reminded and reminded again before the climb even started.”
According to Horner, this was the precise moment where UAE’s Giro bid began to crumble.
EF detonate the Finestre — Del Toro is isolated in pink
As the Finestre began, EF Education-EasyPost shattered the front of the race to launch Richard Carapaz. Horner detailed the domino effect: “Mikkel Honore blew it all up. Brandon McNulty went out the back. Rafal Majka went out the back. Adam Yates went out the back,” Horner recalls.
Suddenly, Del Toro — just 21, in only his second Grand Tour — was alone. Yet Horner emphasised that Del Toro did everything right in the moment. “Isaac Del Toro does an amazing job to come right back up to Richard Carapaz.”
And he was composed doing it, as Horner notes: “At one moment, you catch him on the video where he’s actually relaxed and sitting up and wiping off his hands as he knows he’s got some good form.”
For Horner, those images mattered: Del Toro had the legs — and the calm — to defend pink. “He’s racing intelligently.”
“He has still not been told” — and the race flipsThe turning point, Horner believes, came not from an attack but from silence. While Del Toro was glued to Carapaz, Simon Yates surged forward, in what would ultimately become a Giro d’Italia winning attack. “Simon Yates bridges across… he has still not been told that Wout Van Aert’s up the road.”
Only when it was far too late did the crucial call arrive: “The gap is up to 55 seconds before he hears in his race radio the one time that Fabio Baldato, the director sportif says, ‘Don’t forget Wout Van Aert’s up the road,’” Horner explains in disbelief.
In Horner’s eyes, the result was inevitable from that moment. “If he gets to Wout Van Aert’s back wheel… nobody’s catching Wout Van Aert.”
Del Toro confirms the radio delay: “They should’ve told me…”
Del Toro’s own reflections only underline Horner’s analysis. As he explained in his interview with GCN:
“When the radio told me Yates was up the road — and that Van Aert was too — Simon already had 55 seconds. They should’ve told me about Van Aert when he had ten seconds, and I’d have said: let’s attack, let’s try,” he recalled.
“The strongest rider… never even tried to defend the jersey”
Horner’s most scathing verdict was saved for the tactical breakdown itself: “You almost never see the strongest rider in the race of a grand tour lose because he never even tried to defend the jersey.”
In his view, Del Toro didn’t lose the Giro — the UAE team car lost it for him: “The director sportif failed multiple times,” the former Vuelta a Espana winner concludes.