The 198-kilometre stage took the race away from Nice, the host of the opening two days of racing.

French riders Anthony Perez, Benoît Cosnefroy and Jérôme Cousin formed the early breakaway, with the first two riders tussling for King of the Mountains points.

Perez secured the jersey only to crash out of the race with a broken collarbone, meaning the honour passed on to Cosnefroy.

Cousin had opted to leave the duo behind after 70 kilometres of racing, with the Frenchman conducting a solo breakaway.

The Total Direct Energie rider was caught by the peloton with 16 kilometres remaining, as sprinter’s teams gathered themselves for the finish.

Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Bennett had appeared on course to secure the stage victory, but the Irish rider was impressively tracked by Ewan.

Ewan came through the field in the closing stages and hit the front metres before the line.

The Lotto Soudal rider secured victory in a time of 5 hours, 17min and 42sec, with Ireland's Bennett narrowly behind in second.

Italy’s newly crowned European champion Giacomo Nizzolo was forced to settle for third place.

Ewan has now earned four Tour de France stage wins in his career, having earned a hat-trick in the 2019 race.

His victory will be a boost to Lotto Soudal, who saw Belgian rider Philippe Gilbert withdraw from the race with a broken kneecap, while Germany's John Degenkolb missed the time limit on the first stage.

France’s Julian Alaphilippe remains in the yellow jersey following his stage win yesterday.

He holds a four second advantage over Britain’s Adam Yates, with Switzerland’s Marc Hirschi a further three seconds back.

Tomorrow’s stage will see riders tackle a 160.5km hilly route between Sisteron and Orcières-Merlette.

Racing is taking place amid the coronavirus crisis, with organisers putting additional health and safety measures in place.

This includes protocols to limit attendance of spectators, social distancing and enhanced cleaning measures at the race.

Spectators have been told to stay two metres away from riders, along with using masks and hand sanitiser should they attend.