Jean-Christophe Peraud (Ag2r) continued his love story with the Mont Faron when he won the queen stage of the Tour Mediteraneen up the steep ascent for the second year in a row. Also for the second consecutive year, the 36-year-old Frenchman finished 2nd on GC, only 4 seconds behind Stephen Cummings (BMC), and his team blames the lost victory on a car that hindered Peraud in yesterday's time trial.

Jean-Christophe Peraud has done the Tour Mediteraneen four times and three of those races have included a queen stage that finished atop the feared Mont Faron on the outskirts of Toulon. And the veteran Frenchman obviously likes the climb as he has never finished outside the top 2 on its slopes.

In 2011, he was beaten into second by David Moncoutie while he took a resounding victory 12 months ago. Today he doubled his tally when he launched a stinging attack inside the final kilometre of this year's queen stage, holding off Eduardo Sepulveda (Bretagne), Stefan Denifl (IAM) and overall winner Stephen Cummings by 11 seconds.

The win was taken by virtue of Peraud's strong climbing legs but he praised his team for setting him up for the attack.

“That’s a great collective win," he said. "The instructions have been followed and it paid off. I knew this 5th stage would be physically demanding but I have been well supported by my teammates. Yauheni (Hutarovich) remained by my side to protect me throughout the day. Julien (Bérard ) and Guillaume (Bonnafond) did a good job on the descent in order to place me in a good position inside the bunch. Then Mika (Cherel) and Matteo (Montaguti) worked well at the foot of the Mont Faron. And, it is Carlos (Betancur) who helped me to attack in the middle of the climb and so, to leave behind my competitors. Everyone made his contribution to get this stage win."

However, there was also a sense of regret for Peraud. In 2011 and 2013, he had both finished 2nd in the race overall - last year he was even equal on time with Thomas Löfkvist (IAM) - and it appears to be his destiny always to be narrowly edged out. This year he again finished 2nd overall, having been beaten by Cummings by just 4 seconds.

Nonetheless, he insists that he is mostly satisfied with his race.

"Tonight I am predominantly satisfied," he told Directvelo. "Mont Faron is a big stage. And then to win it for a second time is a great reward. It is the first victory of the team this year.

"I looked back and saw that Stephen Cummings was not far behind me  so I didn't really think about the overall victory but more about the stage win. This is also why I really wanted to attack at the top of the climb. In the end I miss only four seconds in the overall standings. I think I should have found them in the time trial. Three times second in the Tour Mediteraneen, it is like that and I can't rewrite history. I will now continue with the Classic du Sud-Ardeche, the Drome Classic and Tirreno-Adriatico."

While Peraud was reluctant to discuss his narrow loss, his sports director Julien Jurdie vented his frustration. According to Jurdie, a car had hindered Peraud during the time trial and he blamed the incident for the missing 4 seconds.

"The whole team worked well today to get this stage win," he said. "It is really a collective work with Yauheni (Hutarovich), Julien (Bérard) and Guillaume (Bonnafond) who have been present from the first kilometers, then with Matteo (Montaguti) and Mikael (Cherel) on the final part. A special mention to Carlos (Betancur)  who has been an invaluable help on the Faron climb.

However, we have some regrets with regard to the overall standings. Yesterday, Jean- Christophe was hindered by a car during the individual time- rial and the 4 seconds missing to win the overall classification may be found there. We will never know but it is a little bit frustrating.

"Without this disadvantage of four seconds, the GC would probably not have been lost," he added to Directvelo. "It is true that we regret that incident which was not Jean-Christophe's or the team's fault. Unfortunately, a car was at a crossroads where it shouldn't have been. Otherwise, Jean-Christophe would surely have won the GC."

Despite the regrets, Jurdie was happy to have been relieved for some pressure.

"This day is still satisfactory," he said. "It is the first victory of the season. We know that it is important to get the ball rolling. Psychologically, there is now not a certain pressure to win. This victory will be good for the whole team in the Tour of Oman, the Trofeo Laigueglia and the Tour du Haut-Var next week.

"During the stage everything worked as expected. We stayed very quiet in the early part. BMC got assistance from the Italian team (Bardiani) and then everything was set for the finale. The whole team did a really good job, especially Carlos Betancur who was very strong on the climb. He protected Jean-Chrisophe well behind the Argentinean (Eduardo Sepulveda). Thus it is important to notice that it was a collective victory.

"We were especially wary of Zoidl. We know that Cummings always works hard in the beginning of the season. He loves this time of the year. We saw that a few years ago when he won a beautiful stage in the Volta ao Algarve at the top of a climb. So we expected that he would be difficult to drop but we hoped that he would still crack a little bit on a five-kilometre climb. But he didn't crack in the final kilometre. That was what we would have needed."

In addition to Peraud's 2nd place, Betancur finished 11th overall.