Cofidis' Rein Taramae has taken over control of the 50th Tour Of Turkey after victory on the third stage.
Mark Cavendish started the stage from Finike to Elmali in the leader's blue jersey but on a 185km stage best suited for the climbers there was no chance of him still wearing it at the end of the day.
Aramendia, Vanspeybrouck, Sijmens, Debesay & Le Mevel went away early before British rider Simon Yates crashed and was taken to hospital with a suspected broken collarbone.
Debesay dropped back and with a lead of 5.40, Aramendia was dropped from the break, which was now made up of Pieter Vanspeybrouck of Topsport, Nico Sijmens of Wanty Group, Chistophe Le Mevel of Cofidis and Davide Frattini of UnitedHealthCare who had bridged from a peloton which was split and had a group at the back including Mark Cavendish who were seven minutes down.
Into the final thirty kilometres, the quartet up front were 1.09 ahead on another sunny day as Nico Sijmens took the first sprint of the day.
There was a big crash which took down at least seven riders including David Rebellin, the oldest man in the race, as they tired to negotiate a left hand turn not far after the sprint.
The gap droppd to 35 seconds with fifteen kilometres to go as the road started to go uphill on a climb which had gradients of 16%.
Pieter Vanspeybrouck, Nico Sijmens, Chistophe Le Mevel of Cofidis and Davide Frattini of UnitedHealthCare were caught with 13kms to go and a Topsport rider in Salomein seized his chance and attacked.
He was brought back and Bardiani's Marco Canola was on the front for the final ten kilometres.
This stage was now between a group of about twenty riders who were on a ramp of 7% with 5k left.
That was the calm before the storm as on a ramp of 13%, British rider Adam Yates of Orica Green Edge joined Rein Taramae of Cofidis on the front. It was an attack which saw them take a twenty second lead as the riders in the chase group all looked at each other.
Kevin Seeldrayers decided with 2kms and 25 seconds from the front two, to try and get after them. Kudus led the chasers back to Seeldrayers but it was now out of Yates and Taramae as to who won the stage and who took over as race leader.
Taramae went and although Yates chased him, the Estonian Cofidis rider took the win in 5.40.32, six seconds ahead of Yates, followed thirty seconds later by Roman Hardy of Cofidis, Kudus and Rebellin.
Tarame, who now swaps the blue Estonian national champion jersey for the blue Tour of Turkey jersey with a six second lead over Yates. told Matt Rendell "I have been suffering and I did a sprint but found out that I had asthma. I have too much skin in my throat and I had an operation and I started racing only ten days ago.
"This was a big win and I am back and I will see how things go."