Chris Froome Wins 15th Stage of Tour de France Chris Froome negotiates the the 242.5-km 15th stage of the Tour de France between Givors and Mont Ventoux. Chris Froome shattered any belief his Tour de France rivals may have had that they could send him into Monday's rest day nervous about his grip on the yellow leader's jersey with an emphatic attacking display up Mont Ventoux in Provence on Sunday that again extended his overall lead. The victory by Froome (Sky) in the 242.5km 15th stage from Givors to the summit of Mont Ventoux, was his second in a stage for this year's race - the first being on stage 8 to Ax 3 Domaines in the Pyrenees. And again, the result not only increased his lead, but gave the top overall classification a shake up. His overall lead in the Tour that ends in Paris on Sunday is now 4minute 14seconds over Dutchman Bauke Mollema (Belkin) and 4mins 25secs over Spain's Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff). Meanwhile, for Australia's Cadel Evans (BMC) the stage ended terribly and silenced any realistic hope of him finishing high in the classification. Evans fell from 13th overall at 6mins 54secs to 16th at 15mins 40secs - almost 7mins 42secs out of the top 10 - after finishing 31st at 8mins 46secs to Froome. Froome, who became the first rider since Belgian great Eddy Merckx to win at Mont Ventoux in the yellow jersey, said it was his greatest career win. Froome's winning move came after brilliant team work to position him on the last 20.8km climb. He attacked Colombian Nairo Quintana (Movistar) with 1.3km to go and just after passing the memorial for Tom Simpson, the British cyclist who collapsed on the same climb in the 1967 Tour and died. Froome crossed the line with his right arm lifted to the sky, 29secs clear of second placed Quintana, 1min 23 secs ahead of Spaniards Mikel Nieve (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), and 1min 40secs before Romain Kreuzinger (Saxo-Tinkoff) of the Czeck Republic who is fourth overall at 4mins 28secs, and his team leader, Contador in fifth and sixth places. Meanwhile, Mollema finished in eighth place at 1min 46secs. "It wasn't actually planned," Froome said of his final attack. I tried to distance Quintana a few times before, each time he followed me quite easily. I thought he was going to win the stage at that point and I'd just focus on getting time in the 'GC'.[general classification] at about 2km, [when] he started faltering, and I decided. It was circumstantial that it was close to Tom Simpson's' memorial, but it was definitely worth paying tribute to him. Earlier, Froome was superbly guided to the strike zone with 7km to go by his teammates who swarmed the front of the peloton with 28.5km to go as it chased the main break. At the foot of Mont Ventoux, the break splintered after Frenchman Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) attacked. Teammates still with Froome in the peloton at 2mins 52secs then were Britons Ian Stannard, Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh, Spaniard David Lopez, Belarus's Kanstatntin Siutsuo and Australia Richie Porte. One by one, they would drop back after taking their planned turns to put their all into riding tempo in front as the breakaway riders up front began to fall back and be reeled in - one of them being Slovakian Peter Sagan (Cannondale). For Sagan, victory was not going to be his to enjoy, but he certainly challenged Froome for the move of the day with 17.3km to go when, out of the blue, he produced a one handed wheelie and salute to the television camera just as he was about to be caught by the Tour leader's group. Sagan may have smiled as he bid adieu to the front end of the race, but there were no smiles from the Sky-led group that swept past him on his left. By that point, Chavanel was followed by some of the breakaway group were still ahead, including South African Orica-GreenEDGE rider Daryl Impey, who would be caught with 15km to go. Meanwhile, Froome, still had three teammates with him for support with Siutsuo, Kennaugh and Porte. Siutsou was soon dropped after he spent all his cartridges, leaving only Kennaugh and Porte to help Froome for the remainder of the climb. At the back of Froome's group, riders started to drop off the pace. It was with 11km to go, after Quintana's attack with 13km to go, that Evans lost contact. The effort put in by Kennaugh in front was evident by the contorted grimace on his face as he dug ever so deep with his final pedal strokes before peeling off the front and dropping back with 9.5km left. That left only Porte to try and set up Froome for his final stage winning efforts. The impact of Porte's dig was astonishing as in the space of 200m their group was down to three riders in him, Froome, and Contador. Further up the road, the lead of Quintana, who had been reeling in the survivors of the early break one by one, was also cut by Porte's tempo. Like Kennaugh, Porte threw everything he had into setting a fierce tempo with Froome and Contador on his wheel before he sat up with 7.2km left. And almost simultaneously, Froome attacked, his wheels spinning furiously like an egg beater and distanced Contador, and quickly joined Quintana. "Quintana attacked quite far out, he was going up the rode with a decent advantage," Froome recalled later. Climbing as well as he does, he wasn't someone we wanted to let get a lot of time. Pete Kennaugh took over, Richie Porte took over and closed the gap down and in the process got rid of a lot of the GC guys on our wheels, only Alberto was left. As Richie came to his end, I thought, now's the time; I don't want to play games. With 5km left Froome and Quintana had 25sesc on Contador and Nieve, while a reformed group behind them was at 1min 16secs. The stage was set for a gripping finale that at one point looked like seeing Quintana win the stage after he was able to follow two attacks by the Briton - with 6.6km and 3.8km to go. But with 1.3km left, Froome, who sensed the Colombian was fading, sealed his stage win with one last attack to win.