Vuelta a España 2025 Stage 5 Preview & Betting Tips

Weather: Mid-20s °C with a chance of rain and a steady westerly breeze of around 10km/h through the late afternoon and early evening. No obvious advantage for early or late starters, though teams could get lucky – or unlucky – depending on showers.

Route characteristics: A flat, looping course with a few tricky sections, but largely straightforward and untechnical.

Stage suits: At just 24.1 km, this stage favours powerful riders and time-trial specialists who can sustain high speed. As ever, coordination and communication will be crucial in a discipline that’s rarely practiced.

Stage 5 Contenders

Visma Lease a Bike (6/4; 2.5) – Winners of the Paris–Nice TTT earlier this year with Jonas Vingegaard, Victor Campenaerts and Matteo Jorgenson over a similar distance. That team did include Edoardo Affini, however, and losing Axel Zingle is a blow but they still have a strong chance of a repeat here.

UAE Team Emirates-XRG (2/1; 3.0) – Packed with strong time trialists in Jay Vine (who had a little tumble on stage 4 but looked fine), João Almeida, Juan Ayuso, Mikkel Bjerg, Felix Großschartner and Ivo Oliveira. No weak links, and likely to push Visma close.

Ineos Grenadiers (7/2; 4.5) – Have Filippo Ganna, though he’s not looked at his very best, plus Magnus Sheffield and stage 4 winner Ben Turner in the engine room. The team mood should be high and they could go close.

Lidl-Trek (22/1; 23.0) – Giro d’Italia TT winner Daan Hoole, alongside Mads Pedersen and Søren Kragh Andersen, make them definite place contenders.

Groupama-FDJ (22/1; 23.0) – Last off and motivated to defend David Gaudu’s red jersey. With Stefan Küng and Rémi Cavagna, they’ve got half a chance.

Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe (40/1; 41.0) – A solid lineup featuring Matteo Sobrero, Finn Fisher-Black, Tim Van Dijke, and Nico Denz. May outperform their odds.

Stage 5 Bets

Bigger-budget teams usually dominate time trials thanks to their investment in R&D, and unless the weather intervenes an outsider is unlikely to win.

Hard to call, but UAE Team Emirates-XRG look especially strong, while Visma Lease a Bike face setbacks from losing Zingle, the stage 2 crash, and the disruption of the post-stage bike theft.

UAE Team Emirates-XRG 1pt win @2/1 (1st)

Posted 2056 BST Tue 26th Aug 2025

Prices quoted are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change

Stage 5 Result