Vincenzo Nibali emerged as the big winner in today's dramatic fifth stage of the Tour de France as the race leader gained massive amounts of time on most of his rivals. Naturally pleased with the outcome, however, the Italian wants to keep his feet on the ground.

In 2010 Vincenzo Nibali was the nail when he crashed out of the maglia rosa on the gravel roads in the Giro d'Itala. Today he was the hammer when he used the wet cobbles in Northern France to distance all his key rivals.

Nibali excelled on the rough surface and together with teammate Jakob Fuglsang, he even distanced specialists like Peter Sagan and Fabian Cancellara in the finale. In the end, he gained almost two minutes on all his key rivals for the overall victory and now sits 2.37 ahead of Alberto Contador in the overall standings.

“I'm delighted with the outcome of today's stage," he said. "It was a really stressful day and a very hard race. I wasn't thinking of the yellow jersey. I was just focused on riding the best I could. I'm in good shape.

"I've prepared for this particular stage but the conditions today were very different from those I experienced when I came and ride on the cobbles. It was also a very different feeling as when we rode the ‘strade bianche' at the Giro d'Italia. Here I managed to guide my bike much better.

"It was extremely slippery. I've lost some team-mates who slipped but at the end, it was still a great team work with Jakob Fuglsang and Lieuwe Westra who went in a breakaway to be able to help me in the finale as he fantastically did. It went all well.

"I learnt how to ride well when I was a boy and rode around on a mountain bike. Fuglsang was a world mountain bike champion and he was amazing today. [Lieuwe] Westra was amazing too. It was great he went in the break because he was up there to help me. It was a very hard stage. I'm just happy that it went well for us. It was terrible out there. It was incredibly stressful from start to finish. There were a lot of crashes too.

"I didn't think I would distance Contador so much today. But I'll keep my feet on the ground. I want to remain quiet. It's still a long way away with lots of mountains and everybody has seen today that crashes can happen.

"I'm really sorry for Chris Froome, he's a great rival but unfortunately there are also these kinds of stages in the Tour de France.

"Cycling is about racing on all kinds of conditions. At the Giro d'Italia we get days like this. We raced on the dirt roads of Strade Bianche one year and I lost the pink jersey that day. Froome crashed yesterday and he crashed again today, before the cobbles. That's cycling."