German Marcel Kittel (ARG) notched up the first yellow jersey of the 2013 Tour de France after a 213km stage from Porto-Vecchio to Bastia marked by disarray and setbacks in the finale.

With things calm until the final 15km, the finish was literally shaken by the bus from one of the teams getting stuck between the ground and the arc d'arrivée. The organizers initially decided to bring the finish to the 3km-to-go banner, though it would be eventually turned back to its original place, with all riders receiving the same time as the day's winner.

Confusion caused the pace in the bunch to increase, which created a massive pile-up with just over 6km to go. Movistar Team saw Rui Costa affected by the crash, the Portuguese rider reaching the finish line dropped, with a hard blow to his right wrist, which was immediately put into ice to avoid inflammation. Barring a worsening of his injuries, his race doesn't seem to be compromised and he should be ready to continue tomorrow. The crash, in which Imanol Erviti also had a wheel broken, did not affect Valverde, Quintana, Gutiérrez and Rojas (9th at the sprint), all of them finishing in the first big group after the incident.

"I'm happy not to have lost any time and to stay into contention,” Rui Costa said after the stage. “Four Tours already in my career, this will be the fifth - we already know how everything works in the first days of racing. You have to pay attention all the time, even more so in the final 30km. You have to keep the best position, and we did, but crashes are sometimes impossible to avoid. When I fell, I had the chain off its place, and when trying to put it back into function, my hand was hurting a lot, but now that I have put on some ice, I feel better. We'll have to see how it gets when it's colder, because it doesn't really hurt when it's hot and you always have to see how you do later, but I think I don't have any injuries."