• New Zealand’s Patrick Bevin leads tour by four seconds • Lake District stages on Thursday and Friday to be crucial

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

It is not often the Lake District can be said to loom large in Royal Leamington Spa but the peloton in the Tour of Britain will have had the northern mountains on their mind after Wednesday’s 183.5km fourth stage finished, with André Greipel taking his second win in four days.

The 200-mile transfer will give ample time to ponder two challenging days that should see the race pretty much decided by Friday afternoon after a total of three ascents of the Whinlatter Pass, from both its east and west sides in both a team time trial and a conventional road stage.

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Greipel’s victory was a straightforward matter of being well placed out of the final turn into Newbold Terrace with 350m to go; the race leader Patrick Bevin, in a successful quest for time bonus seconds, led the German out of the bend.

The Lotto-Soudal sprinter had no difficulty overhauling the Kiwi for his seventh Tour of Britain stage win, while Bevin earned a four-second bonus for finishingthird behind the Italian Sacha Modolo. It pulled the BMC rider ahead of the Australian Cameron Meyer, who had started the day level on time.

Quick guide Tour of Britain overall standings Show Hide 1) Patrick Bevin (NZl) BMC Racing Team 15hr 25min 11sec

2) Cameron Meyer (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott at 4sec

3) Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Quick-Step Floors at 6sec

4) Jasha Sutterlin (Ger) Movistar Team at 16sec

5) Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky at 16sec

6) Christopher Hamilton (Aus) Team Sunweb at 16sec

7) Bob Jungels (Lux) Quick-Step Floors at 16sec

8) Primoz Roglic (Slo) LottoNL-Jumbo at 16sec

9) Hugh Carthy (GBr) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale at 23sec

10) Scott Davies (GBr) Dimension Data at 26sec

That may be irrelevant by Thursday tea-time, as the race is about to take a radically different turn, with a team time trial, which is relatively short at 14km but which concludes with the 5km climb of Whinlatter.

With times taken on the fourth rider in each team, the result will depend on how the squads temper their efforts to accommodate those who may not be the strongest climbers, while a further factor may be the chance of showers.

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“It is difficult to analyse, because teams can just explode when we go uphill for that long on time-trial bikes,” Meyer said. “It will be very hard to manage, and should be exciting to watch.”

As far as Leamington, the Quick-Step team of Julian Alaphilippe and Bob Jungels had looked the strongest but what awaits in the Lake District is far harder to call.