Chris Froome (Sky) enjoyed the support of his team throughout the Thursday’s queen stage in the Tour de France and linked up with Richie Porte second time up the famous climb to limit his losses, Porte leading his team-mate home as the Sky duo claimed sixth and seventh on the day respectively.

The stage witnessed a gigantic battle between the general classification contenders, Froome linking up with Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Joaquím Rodriguez (Katusha) on the climb as the stage exploded in an avalanche of attacks and counterattacks.

With chief rival Alberto Contador (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) distanced Froome began, for the first time in the race, to show signs of weakness on the final slopes with Quintana and Rodriguez pushing clear to cross the line fourth and fifth behind the day’s breakaway.

Porte intrepidly connected across the gap to pace Froome, who dropped one minute and six seconds to Quintana but was still able to open out his race lead to 5’11” over Contador, flanked by Porte all the way to the finish.

After the stage Froome - who was deducted 20 seconds for taking an energy gel in the closing stages - reflected on a problematic run for home, confessing: "It wasn't a huge setback [in the last 5km], Richie was feeling a lot better than I was today and I was running out of sugars towards the end. I had to ask him to go back and grab me some sugars from the car.

"I was just getting in as best I could in those last few kilometres. I'm not sure if it made any difference at that point in the race. Contador and Kreuziger were our biggest threats going into today. It was a really good feeling to hear on the radio that they had dropped back on that last climb, and it was really good for Quintana to have got a bit of an advantage today and I definitely predict he'll finish on the podium here at the Tour."