Albert Timmer made the break as Lawson Craddock climbed to 31st on the uphill finish of stage 5 at Pra-Loup. Romain Bardet won the stage, Tejay van Garderen took over the lead in the general classification at the Dauphiné.

It was a difficult mountain stage of 161km with 5 registered climbs, including the first category climb Col d’Allos. The stage from Digne-les-Bains to Pra Loup is an exact replica of stage 17 in the upcoming Tour de France.

Albert Timmer was part of the early break of 7 riders, which were caught back on the second-last climb. Just before the top, Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) attacked from the group of GC contenders. He expanded his lead in the descent and retained this on the final climb to win the stage. 36” later Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) came in second and took over the overall lead. Lawson Craddock was home first for Team Giant-Alpecin at 31st.

Coach Christian Guiberteau said: “Lawson dropped after one bad moment on the Col d’Allos, as he kept on riding with the same distance, but could not return unfortunately. At that moment there were only 25 guys in the leading group left.

“As part of the plan, Albert was in the break with a nice group, in that way he could assist Lawson in the finale. We are satisfied with today and the performance of Lawson gives confidence for the days to come.”

Craddock added: “Today was a hard stage with a lot of climbing. The team did a great job of supporting me until the base of the second to last climb. It was also really nice to have Albert in the break to have support late in the climb.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t have the legs to follow the last three kilometers of the climb and the descent was too narrow to get back though the cars. My legs came around on the finishing climb, but that point I was just trying to limit my losses.

“The good thing is there are still three very hard stages to come and we have shown that we still have a lot of fight in us!”