Taylor Phinney showed good sprinting form in yesterday's stage of the Tour of California when he took fourth in the bunch sprint fo seventh. With a tough climb in the finale of today's stage, the American hopes to make it over the top with the best and has made the stage a clear objective.

BMC Racing Team's Taylor Phinney sprinted to 10th place Wednesday at the Amgen Tour of California as a six-man breakaway survived to the finish.  Will Routley (Team Optum by Kelly Benefit Strategies) took the win ahead of Gregory Daniel (Bissell Development Team) and Kevin De Masmaeker (Team Novo Nordisk).

Mark Cavendish, winner of Stage 1, led the field across the line 1:17 later in seventh. Phinney scored his second top 10 finish of the race after placing third in the Stage 2 individual time trial.

"It was a good sprint for me," Phinney said. "I had a lot of help from Michael Schär and Greg Van Avermaet leading into it and it was a really fast run-in. Tailwind sprints like that are usually good for me."

Phinney said he is targeting Thursday's stage, which finishes along the coastline in Santa Barbara.

"I want to make it over San Marcos pass and then hopefully be a smaller group going to the finish and try to go for the sprint there," he said.

Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) finished 18th and increased his overall lead on many of the overall contenders by four seconds – including BMC Racing Team's Peter Stetina – when a split in the field occurred after 20th place. Stetina finished 31st, 1:31 back of the stage winner and is sixth overall, 2:28 off the lead.

BMC Racing Team Sport Director Max Sciandri said he was a little surprised the breakaway was not caught and wished a BMC Racing Team rider could have been a part of it.

"I told everybody except Pete to keep their eyes out for the break. We knew it was going to go. It is good for some of those smaller teams and a little bit disappointing for us."