Adam Yates continued to impress in his neo-pro season when he held onto a top 10 spot in today's queen stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné. Having dropped one spot, however, the Brit was disappointed with his performance.

It was another day of high drama at the Critérium du Dauphiné with Lieuwe Westra (Astana) putting in a late surge to overtake Katusha teammates Yury Trofimov and Egor Silin just ahead of the line atop Montee de Finhaut-Emosson. Whilst the podium came from the early break, the next five spots were hard-fought amongst the overall contenders. Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) launched an attack in the final two kilometres to cross the finish line in fourth place 20” ahead of Chris Froome (Team Sky). The Spaniard moves into the yellow with one day left to race.

In his first test in the high mountains, Adam Yates fought valiantly to maintain contact with what was left of the yellow jersey group over the two hors categorie climbs that made up the finale. Falling off the pace only in the final eight kilometres, Yates rounds out the top ten, 2’52 behind the new race leader, following stage seven.

"The plan today was all about Adam," sports director Matt Wilson said. "We hoped he would be in a good enough position at the bottom of the final climb, without having done anything all day, to do his thing from there until the finish.

"A big break went early. It would have been a good thing for us to have had a guy in there, but it wasn’t that big of a deal in the end that we didn’t. The team did a great job looking after Adam, and that was most critical today.

"Unfortunately, no one had the legs to go with Adam on the second to last climb, so he was isolated in the last 20 kilometres. It wasn’t fantastic, but it’s unlikely that it had any real impact in the end.

"Adam said he felt average all day today, and he didn’t feel like he did a good ride. He feels a bit disappointed with his performance. From the team’s perspective, we don’t share his sentiment. We’re quite proud of what Adam has done all week, and I think he put in a really good ride today as a neo-pro on the queen stage of his first Dauphiné. He’s still holding onto a top ten position, which is great for him.

"Tomorrow suits Adam better than today. He’ll try to have a go for the stage win. He’s only two seconds off of ninth place. There’s still a lot that can happen tomorrow."