Braving a brief rain shower before crossing the line in a time of 51 minutes 33 seconds, which proved nine seconds faster than the second-placed Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff), Chris Froome (Sky) won Wednesday’s individual time trial in the Tour de France to extend his overall lead.

The victory was Froome’s third stage success of this year’s Tour de France, and saw his lead at the top of the standings grow to 4min 34sec. Contador’s performance ensured he climbed one place to second overall, 17 seconds ahead of his Saxo-Tinkoff team-mate Roman Kreuziger, who ended the stage in third.

After the stage Froome revealed that he was surprised to see he’d posted the fastest time, with the weather looking like it might have conspired against him at one point.

“I couldn’t believe it when I got over the line and saw I had the fastest time,” he said. “I went into today thinking I was going to try and limit my losses - thinking about the days to come,” Froome said on his team’s website.

“To go through the finish line with the fastest time – I didn’t see that coming. I really didn’t think the weather was going in my direction. I had a bit of rain on the second descent. Luckily the first one had dried up by the time I got there so I was really happy with that.”

Froome also explained the deliberate choice of placing a bigger gear on his time trial bike may have proved to be crucial in helping him secure the stage win. It was a decision the race leader took after riding the route in the morning.

“That could very well have been the difference,” he added. “When I rode the route this morning I felt I needed the bigger gearing for the last descent. The run-in was really fast so I made sure I had bigger gears on that second bike to be able to push on coming into the final.”

Froome revealed that he entered the time trial with a willingness to lose a bit of time in order to conserve some strength ahead of Thursday’s daunting challenges.

“I’m still surprised by today’s result. I went into it almost prepared to lose a bit of time, just thinking about the days to come and not wanting to put myself absolutely in the hurt box ahead of those two times up L’Alpe d’Huez tomorrow. I didn’t do that – I didn’t go as deep as I did on that first time trial and I was encouraged to hear those time checks when I got them - I wasn’t too far off Contador on those first three checks, and having changed to the time trial bike, I was able to gain a few seconds as I went to the end.”

Thursday’s stage is arguably the toughest the riders will face in this year’s race, and Froome is not taking anything for granted as he heads into the high Alps.

“It’s going to be a race all the way to Paris,” the British rider admitted. “Even though I’ve got quite a good buffer, that’s still being challenged every day and these next three days are going to be the hardest of the Tour so far. I’m not looking to win stages, I’m just trying to do what I can to hold on to whatever lead I’ve got with the yellow jersey. That comes first as a priority and anything else at this point is a bonus.”