Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) was furious after yesterday's opening stage in the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe. Today he got his revenge as he beat Bryan Coquard (Europcar) in a sprint at the end of the morning stage on the second day of racing in France.

French champion Nacer Bouhanni expressed his dissatisfaction with yesterday's stage winner Matteo Pelucchi (IAM) and the two sprinters engaged in a public spat of words over the final kilometres of yesterday's stage. By holding off his rivals in the final dash to the line in today's opening stage, he made up for yesterday's disappointment.

The sprint came at the end of 93,6km flat stage to the city of Angers. Early on, Cyril Bessy (Cofidis), Nathan Haas (Garmin), Rony Martias (Sojasun) and Julian Kern (Ag2r) escaped the peloton, and they were later joined by Duber Quintero (Colombia). They were allowed to build up a gap of around 1.30.

With the stage being a short one, the sprinters' teams knew that they could not allow the break too much leeway, and the IAM team of overall leader Matteo Pelucchi made sure to keep the gap stable for most of the stage. Up ahead, Martias - who was on the attack for the second consecutive day - took maximum points on the day's early climb to extend his lead in the mountains competition.

The break was always doomed and as they approached the final 3 laps of a 6,2km finishing circuit, the escapees were caught. Moments later Anthony Delaplace (Sojasun) decided to try his luck, and he set off in a solo attempt.

He managed to build up a gap of 25 seconds, but as Team Europcar decided to contribute to the pace-setting in an attempt to set up Bryan Coquard, his advantage vanished, and he was caught on the final lap of the finishing circuit.

A crash took out Guillaume Levarlet (Cofidis) and Edwin Avila (Colombia), but that did not disturb the sprint trains from getting organized near the front. In the end, FDJ proved to be most successful, and Bouhanni took his second win in just a couple of days after his victory in the Val d'Ille Classic on Sunday.

Pelucchi keeps the leader's jersey and will be the last rider down the ramp in the afternoon's all-decisive 6,2km time trial in Angers.