Australian cyclist Cadel Evans remained in third place overall but lost almost a minute on the leaders on the 15th stage of the Tour de France.

Alexander Vinokourov clinched his second victory with panache when he won the 196-km ride through the Pyrenees from Foix.

The Astana rider, who lost all hope of winning the race when he cracked and crashed on Sunday's 14th stage, went solo 15 km from the summit of the Col de Peyresourde to beat Luxembourg's Kim Kirchen of the T-Mobile team.

Euskaltel rider Haimar Zubeldia of Spain came home third.

Dane Michael Rasmussen of the Rabobank team retained the overall leader's yellow jersey from young Discovery team rider Alberto Contador.

The Spaniard attacked him on the final climb to finish 10th to Rasmussen's 11th but the Dane retained a buffer of 2min 23sec.

Evans and Germany's Andreas Kloeden were unable to respond to Contador's violent burst of speed and they finished 56 seconds behind the pair.

Evans finished the day still third overall but four minutes adrift of Rasmussen, with American Levi Leipheimer fourth 1:25 further behind.

Vinokourov's team mate Kloeden was fifth, 5:34 off the pace.

"Yesterday, I had no strength. I told myself the Tour is over but I got the support of the whole team," said Vinokourov, who had been back in contention after winning Saturday's time trial in Albi.

The Kazakh, however, lost almost half an hour on Monday and crashed during the ascent of the Plateau-de-Beille.

"I said this morning that I wanted to give it a try. I knew the Col de Peyresourde very well."

Vinokourov was in the 24-man breakaway that built an advantage of 9:50 over the main pack. The Kazakh attacked at the bottom of the category-one climb and never looked back.

The peloton will rest on Tuesday before Wednesday's hardest stage in the Pyrenees, a 218.5-km ride from Orthez to the Col d'Aubisque.

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