Sixth place for Mirco Maestri in the sprint on the second stage in Luxembourg

The final circuit and the tough finish favoured the brave Team Polti Kometa captain, who finished strongly and is now ninth overall.

A very quiet day on the second stage of the Tour of Luxembourg. The team let go a breakaway of two riders that took part in the first part of the race, This front group was controlled and neutralised at the entrance to the final circuit of Schifflange.

It was there that the Team Polti Kometa riders started to appear, looking for positioning and avoiding the crashes that followed one after the other in those final kilometres. Despite the breakaway attempts, the peloton arrived grouped and stretched to a final sprint in which up to four riders of the team fought for the leading positions.

At the finish line, Pedersen (Lidl Trek) took an unstoppable win while Maestri was able to finish sixth in a sprint from the back to stay also in the top-10 overall.

Mirco Maestri: ‘Very good feeling, the team worked perfectly with Davide Bais in the first positions. The idea was to work for Lonardi, but he couldn’t be well positioned for the sprint and I fought for sixth place. Now comes the hardest stage, we will try to do well again’.

Stefano Zanatta, sport director: ‘It was the easiest stage of the race, the guys worked well to control the breakaway and then place Lona, but in the end we fought with Mirco. Tomorrow is the hardest stage in Luxembourg and we are ready to try to achieve a good result’.

Tomorrow the Tour of Luxembourg faces its third stage with a very tough 201 kilometres and what is expected to be the queen day. The final circuit of Diekirch with the Haemerich climb will mark the outcome for the general classification, with Saturday’s time trial still to be contested.