"No wind and high speed made the peloton very nervous. I missed the crash today because I was on the left."

Those were the words of Luis Leon Sanchez after stage five at Paris-Nice. Sanchez avoided a late crash and raced south on a windless day towards the Mediterranean sea coast, and finished in the same time as stage winner David Cimolai of Italy.

Teammate Jakob Fuglsang held on to his Top-5 position with no changes and remains 32 seconds behind overall leader Michal Kwiatkowski of Poland with two more days to race.

Rain, wind and snow will likely fall on the riders on Saturday in the Maritime Alps above Nice, with Sanchez and Fabio Aru close in General Classification on a day for big changes before Sunday's uphill individual time trial.