Belgian Greg Van Avermaet retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey at the end of the 162.5-km trek L’Isle Jourdain.
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He was even humble enough to admit the stage was supposed to be one for the Norwegian – another former Team Sky rider to have been revitalised by his move to the African team.
He told cyclingnews.com: “I couldn’t ask for a better start going into the mountains”.
Navarro briefly dropped Nibali and Impey as he continued to give chase while Van Avermaet settled for sticking ahead of the peloton, which was to be further hampered by the unusual events close to the finish line.
With Mark Cavendish taking three sprints in the opening six days of the race, Dimension Data can reflect on a phenomenal opening week to only their second participation in the Tour de France, with their stage tally now standing at four in seven.
It appeared as though the Briton would be challenged by 2014 Tour victor Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), but the Italian faded and Cummings had a clear run to the line to seal his team’s fourth stage triumph, following on from the successes of Mark Cavendish.
“At the top of the climb I followed Dan Martin who attacked and then I took a bit of a risk on the descent to try and get a gap, to try and get the white jersey”, Yates said after the stage. “There’s a really good atmosphere in the team – we’re all winners and we know that anyone in the team is capable of winning stages”.
The 31-year-old “Manx Missile”, as he is known in the peloton, used his great tactical sense and impressive burst of speed to win the sixth stage of the three-week race in another mass finish Thursday.
“There’s a reason why I’ve had Rolf [Aldag] around me most of my career”, he said. It’s hard to ever get into the Tour de France with those teams, never mind come here and have a free role and interpret the races as you see it.
He added: “If I was the coach I would (pick me), but I’m not the selector”.
The main general classification hopefuls had been caught behind Yates’ collision with the flamme rouge.
Defending champion Chris Froome and last year’s runner-up Nairo Quintana stayed fifth and seventh respectively, both 6:42 off the pace. “It’s not like I’m just making decisions in the final – we have a plan each day and the race goes pretty much to how those guys say it will, which is testament to them and I’m fortunate to have them on my side”.
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“I think he was somewhere behind [Marcel] Kittel”.
