He'd won the first three bunch sprints, but each time there had been a breakaway ahead. Nonetheless, Alberto Loddo’s Tinkoff teammates continued to believe in him, so on Tuesday they sacrificed everything for him, only to see him boxed in at the finish. It was all for nothing. By this time last year he'd already won two stages and was on his way to a hat trick.

On Stage 5, raced flat out across long rolling straightaways, Tinkoff decided to try another option, sending Serguei Klimov in the breaks. But when the last escape got caught 5km from home, the crowd in Bandar Penawar, maniacally shouting and banging on the finish-line barriers under the tropical afternoon sun, was about to be treated to a big bunch gallop.

Two days ago Loddo crashed and hurt his left hand, but when he gripped his handlebars tightly to see whether he felt ready to sprint, the adrenalin was surging. He felt no pain and began to move into position as the road narrowed and snaked its way to the slightly uphill finish, a few of his teammates still beside him.

"In the last two kilometers, it was a question of finding the right position and I found myself in the right place at the right time," he recalled. "With one kilometer to go we were all together but at 400 [meters] to go I was alone; at 300 to go, I chose to jump."

It was the perfect leap at the perfect time. Celebrating emphatically with arms outstretched and a smile as wide, Loddo was a convincing winner over Mauro Richeze (CSF Group-Navigare) and Aurlien Clerc (Bouygues Telecom). The relief was tangible.

"I was desperate to win," said Loddo. "The finish suited me, but during the stage, there wasn't one meter of flat road and we went always flat out. It was a very nervous race; there wasn't a minute to recover. But it went all really well; it's good for my team and my teammates who kept their confidence in me, and I've paid them back."

Asked about the differences between the Tour of Qatar and here, where he upstaged Tom Boonen on one stage to claim victory, Loddo gave an unexpected answer. "It's actually harder to win a bunch sprint here. The difference in the sprints is that in Qatar, Boonen's Quick Step team pulls the bunch at 55 kilometers an hour, and here there are many riders who try and take part in the bunch sprint, which always makes it harder to get position," he said.

The margin between maillot jaune Mathieu Sprick and the other 18 is still the same. Now though, Bouygues Telecom is beginning to pool its resources by not just setting tempo but ordering their Swiss sprinter Clerc to take any sprint bonuses, which has the two-fold effect of preventing rivals from gaining time and saving Sprick's legs for Saturday's mountain stage to Bukit Fraser. And Clerc carried out his orders to perfection - so much so that he's also the new leader on points.

"It's better to take the sprint and have one second for the overall going to our team than other," said Clerc. "Yes, I have the green jersey, but the first [priority] is to protect Mathieu to try and win the overall; the second is to win stages. If I can protect Mathieu and win the green jersey through the intermediate sprints or try to win a stage, then that's okay too," he said with a smile.

Thursday’s sixth of nine stages is another undulating ride that begins in Bandar Penawar and finishes 182.8km later in Kuala Rompin.