Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) retained his one-second advantage over Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) after finishing ninth on stage two of the Criterium du Dauphiné, won by Daniel Moreno (Katusha).
Moreno outsprinted Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun) and Tony Gallopin (RadioShack-Nissan) to claim the 160km stage from Lamastre to Saint-Félicien.
Evans, seventh on the stage, and Wiggins finished in the 44-rider lead group to record the same time as Moreno and defending Dauphiné champion Wiggins paid tribute to his Sky team-mates after a controlled performance which kept the British national champion out of trouble.
“Everyone knew the race went straight uphill right away and our objective was to make it hard from the start,” said the 32-year-old Wiggins.
“Once again the team were incredible, they were fantastic throughout the day and they made my job a lot easier. It was all about respecting the jersey by defending it and also staying safe. It was also a hectic finish so it’s good to have got through it all okay and that’s another day down.”
Rémi Pauriol (FDJ-Big Mat) and Maxime Mederel (Saur-Sojasun) made the first move of the day and the duo were soon joined by a group containing Wiggins, Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky), Philippe Gilbert (BMC), Michael Rogers (Team Sky) and Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-QuickStep).
Such a strong group was afforded little time by the peloton, however, and the escapees were quickly closed down, before David Moncoutie (Cofidis) orchestrated a break on the first of six climbs, with Christophe Kern (Europcar), Blel Kadri (AG2R), and José Sarmiento (Liquigas-Cannondale) joining the Frenchman.
The quartet were allowed to ride away on the Col de Montivernoux but Sky pegged their advantage to four minutes, wary of Kadri’s position 11 seconds adrift of Wiggins in the general classification.
The lead tumbled to less than a minute with 35km to go and that prompted a series of instinctive attacks off the front of the peloton, although Anthony Roux (FDJ-Big Mat) was the only rider able to bridge the gap.
But the breakaway riders were reeled inside the final 10km to setup a sprint from what remained of the peloton and Moreno took advantage on the uphill finish to take the honours.
Wednesday sees the only sprinters stage of the race, with the peloton tackling a 167km route from Givors to La Clayette.
