The FDJ team had a successful start to the Tour of Switzerland whose prologue was won by Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin). Steve Morabito took fifth place while Thibaut Pinot beat most of his rivals in the overall standings, finishing 16 seconds behind the winner.

"Steve is five seconds from winning the stage," says FDJ sports director Yvon Madiot. "Today he was a Swiss in Switzerland, highly motivated and a little nervous. He really wanted to do well. It's really easy to work with him."

Starting early to focus on recovery, Thibaut Pinot was not bad for his first race since the Tour de Romandie. On a course where it was mostly about power, he performed very well. He lost 10 seconds to Ion Izaguirre (Movistar) who is a specialist but only two seconds to Fuglsang (Astana) and beat Spilak (Katusha), Henao (Team Sky), Kwiatkowski (Etixx-Quick Step) and Makja (Tinkoff- Saxo).

Matthieu Ladagnous, Jérémy Roy and Arnaud Démare had a similar time as their leader and Arthur Vichot whose spring was disrupted by a virus, could also be satisfied.

"Arthur had a good start," says Madiot. "He lost some time in the finale but he felt good. He is full of morale, was smiling and is motivated."