Going into the Tour de France, Thibaut Pinot said that the stage he feared the most, was the one that ended in Nimes. Yesterday he got safely through an extremely stressful day without losing any time.

Thibaut Pinot may be an excellent climber but the young Frenchman has lots of weaknesses. Even though much has been said about his poor descending skills, his biggest problem is probably his lack of strength in flat, windy races.

In last year's Vuelta, Pinot lost time when the peloton split in the crosswinds and earlier in this year's Tour de France he again lost almost a minute to his main rivals when echelons were formed. Hence, it was not surprise that Pinot went into yesterday's dangerous stage to Nimes with lots of fear.

However, Pinot roder an attentive race and was often seen near the front in the most stressful moments - albeit usually without any teammates at his side - and he was extremely pleased to get safely through what could have been a very costly day.

"At times, I lost my teammates but in this type of stage, everyone is nervous," he said. "The roundabouts and rain did not help matters, but I think they did a great job. Then the rain started to fall really hard and things got dangerous but there was no new alert. It was stressful, that's all.

"This is another day to have passed and this one was scary. Now, like everyone else, I need to recover and will enjouy my rest day. I go to sleep, do a bit of cycling, probably on the home trainer, and sleep a bit more. After that, we are in the Pyrenees. I know them well."

Manager Marc Madiot confirmed how stressful the day had been.

"These are pretty terrible days," he said. "Today you cold lose everything in an echelon."

"What a stress! It was so important," sports director Yvon Madiot said. "We had the whole team around Thibaut, even Arnaud Démare worked well in the early part of the stage. We feared echelons and to make matters worse, Radio Tour announced earlier today that Thibaut had consulted the medical car because of pain in his knee. And when I asked him how he was, he did not answer me. The radio didn't work."

Pinot confirmed the information.

"I felt a little bit of pain and as a precaution, I asked for painkillers"

Earlier this year, Pinot missed several races due to a knee injury.