Chris Froome (Sky) finished safely in the main bunch which finished 46 seconds behind the day's stage winner Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) in today's 6th stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné. Thus he defended his overall lead of 52 seconds of teammate Richie Porte but the Brit admitted afterwards than the stage had been much harder than expected.

It was supposed that the GC riders would have an easy day in the office in today's sixth stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné as there was really no terrain to make a lasting separation between the best riders in the race. However, the stage which was won by Thomas Voeckler from an early breakaway ended up being a very tough affair.

The riders covered 50km during the first hour of racing as a lot of riders fancied the chances of a successful breakaway and wanted to be part of the action. When the move finally slipped away, Europcar decided to bring it back to form a new break containing their star rider Voeckler.

The group was a strong one and the sprinters' teams had to chase hard in some undulating terrain all day in their ultimately unsuccessful quest to set up a bunch sprint. While Chris Froome safely finished in the main bunch and the stage did nothing to change the top of the GC, the race leader admitted that it had been a tough day.

"Today was supposed to be one of the easier days but it turned out to be one of the hardest stages we’ve done in the Dauphine so far," he said. "It was one of those medium mountain days that a lot of guys could get over and a lot of people thought they could win. It was hard throughout the day. The guys did a great job this morning, controlling the break and making sure that the right guys went and then looking after me again into the final."

"It didn’t look very hard on paper but it was because the sprinters’ teams were motivated to catch the breakaway and it took a long for the breakaway to go. I’m happy to keep the yellow jersey. My team-mates worked very hard for that."

The Sky team did some solid pace-making to make sure that the composition of the breakaway was the right one and they had to some early chasing when the right move had finally gone clear. When the sprinters' teams finally gave up, it was once again left to the British squad to pace the field and Froome was impressed by the efforts by his teammates.

"It’s really encouraging to see," he said. "There were a few guys I think who came into the Dauphine not sure where their form was and a bit apprehensive in that regard. It’s really been good to see the guys stepping up and everyone seems to be getting stronger and stronger each day. The fact that we’re in yellow now gives everyone motivation. It’s great to see everyone coming up like that."

Froome has a healthy 52 seconds advantage over teammate Richie Porte and he is a good position to win the race. However, the race's queen stage is on the menu tomorrow and the riders will tackle another mountaintop finish on Sunday.

Hence, Froome keeps a cautious approach.

"I’ve got a good advantage at the moment, especially keeping in mind that the next guy behind me is Richie Porte" he added. "We’re in a pretty good position but we’ve got two really hard days coming up. We’re going to be tested I’m sure and we’re just looking to get through the next two days without losing any time to any of the major contenders."

Tomorrow's stage is a special one as the riders will tackle the Alpe d'Huez and Col de Sarenne climbs early in the race. Both will be crucial parts of stage 18 of next month's Tour de France and in a lot of aspects Froome sees the Dauphiné as a perfect dress rehearsal for his big objective.

"It’s going to be hard racing," he said." I expect everyone who has lost quite a lot of time on GC to try something. It’s a good exercise. We can see the behavior of the teams we have here, they’ll be the same at the Tour de France. We’ll pass l’Alpe d’Huez tomorrow but it’ll be a bit different than at the Tour next month. This time it’s at the start of the race, not at the end. But we’ll still be able to see how the surface is like. It’ll be useful when we get into July.

Asked to pinpoint his main rival, he marks a former teammate out as his most likely challenger.

"As for my adversaries at the Dauphiné, Michael Rogers, my team-mate from last year, isn’t too far down," he said. The Australian is 4th, 1.37 behind Froome.

Starting at 12.45, you can follow tomorrow's queen stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live.