Alberto Contador may have lost a bit of time to key rival Chris Froome in today's first stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné but to finish close to the Brit in the discipline pleased the Spaniard. With a technical descent being a difficult challenge, he chose to stay safe on the descent and was happy with his feelings ahead of the first mountain stage.

The French warm-up race for the Tour de France was today launched with a 10.6 kilometer long individual time trial in Lyon and Tinkoff-Saxo’s Alberto Contador crossed the finish line in the fastest time. But Tour de France rival Chris Froome (Sky) had the benefit of starting last and he was 8 seconds faster than Contador at the finish line.

The fast Spaniard is now second overall as well before taking on the first mountain stage already tomorrow.

“My time is OK," he said. "For me, the last part was hard. I knew there would be a strong headwind to the finish. It made the race very hard.

"I didn't want to take any useless risk in the downhill as I knew that a motorbike had crashed in the morning so I feared some oil on the road. The most important for me was not to crash. My feeling on the bike was good. I'm very happy with the result.”

“I think this is a good result," sports director Philippe Mauduit said. "It’s not winning but Alberto is obviously well-prepared and now only needs a week of race speed to brush off his physical condition. I’m totally confident. Tomorrow, Sky have the responsibility of the pace-making while we can stay behind before the demanding finale."