Nervousness in the bunch caused numerous incidents again on today’s stage five of the Tour de France.

The stage was one of the longest in this year's race at more than 229 lumpy kilometres between Cagnes-sur-Mer and Marseille, including four rated climbs and a long slope, La Gineste, just 12km from the finish. The latter saw the group breaking up into two echelons due to a crash.

The 20-second advantage for the four survivors from the day's break - De Gendt (Vacansoleil), Lutsenko (Astana), Reza and Arashiro (Europcar) - forced the bunch to push hard. However, a second incident in the bunch, just 300 metres from the finish, caused a pile-up including Nairo Quintana (Movistar), who crashed but was fortunate enough to avoid sustaining any fractures or major injuries.

Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE) is still in the lead as the Movistar quartet of Valverde, Quintana, Amador and Rui Costa stay 20 seconds behind the yellow jersey before stage six on Thursday: 176km from Aix-en-Provence to Montpellier with the wind as the main menace before a predictable sprint finish.

"I saw the pile-up and had time enough to brake, but someone hit me from behind and I went down,” explained Quintana. “It’s nothing to worry about, just a very small bruise in my hand that will not affect me at all. Now we will keep trying to stay out of any incidents for these next two days as we wait for the mountains to come - we all hope to perform well there. I'm feeling quite strong right now - the legs respond well to the efforts, though these small mountains make it easy for power riders to push harder and the race becomes a bit more difficult."