With a second place in the bunch sprint on stage 2, Kris Boeckmans (Lotto Soudal) defended his overall lead in the Tour de Picardie and goes into the final sprint stage with a 6-second advantage over Andrea Guardini.

"We hoped to win a second stage but it's not easy when you're the leader," Lotto Soudal sports director Kurt van de Wouver told Directvelo. "We had the weight of the race to bear. We rode alone. At the end Europcar and Astana helped us a little bit.

"When Rossetto and Jakin made the junction with the breakaway, I was afraid that the peloton would not come back. I was not calm as they rode very fast.

"Tomorrow the priority is the overall win. First we came to win a stage but now we hope to maintain our leading position."