BMC and stagiaire Dylan Teuns were some of the big losers in today's stage of the Tour of Britain as the talented Belgian slipped from third to fifth in the overall standings. However, the team is hopeful that tomorrow's hard stage will be a bit too tough for new race leader Alex Dowsett.

BMC Racing Team's Sebastian Lander kept his lead in the sprint classification Friday at the Friends Life Tour of Britain, but teammate Dylan Teuns dropped from third to fifth overall after a three-man breakaway won the day by nearly two minutes. 

The trio of Matthias Brändle (IAM Cycling), Alex Dowsett (Movistar Team) and Thomas Stewart (Madison Genesis) led by more than nine minutes with 87 kilometers to go in the 205.6-kilometer race. Despite the chasing efforts of the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team of previous race leader Michal Kwiatkowski – with help from the BMC Racing Team – the trio arrived 1:51 ahead of the peloton.

Brändle took the win and his second straight stage while Dowsett was runner-up and assumed the overall lead, 34 seconds ahead of Kwiatkowski. BMC Racing Team's Martin Kohler finished seventh and teammate Rick Zabel was ninth.

Teuns is now 51 seconds back and hoping he can immediately make amends on Saturday.

"Kwiatkowski for sure will try something and probably Nicholas Roche as well," Teuns said. "I need to follow them. Also, Dowsett was not in the front group the past couple of days so I think we will try to drop him again."

Lander held onto the sprint jersey by two points over Dowsett with two days and three stages of the race to go.

BMC Racing Team Sport Director Max Sciandri said the difficulty of Saturday's stage gives Teuns a chance to get back into podium position.

"It has a very hard final: two climbs, one after the other," Sciandri said. "The last one is two kilometers at 10 percent. We're going to go for it."