Caleb Yuan's lead group was devastated by a crash in this year's Tour de France, but the Australian is closing in on his sixth career win at Le Grand Boucle.

Yuan, the leader of the Lotto-Destney team, finished third in Bayonne on Monday before narrowly losing to Jasper Philipsen on Tuesday at the Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro.

Ewan was rendered unusable in the sprint by Jasper de Baiste, who crashed on the second stage to San Sebastian, and another key member of the sprint team, Jacopo Guarnieri, who also had multiple technical run-ins on the motor racing circuit. The team suffered a fallen rider.

"Jasper crashed on the second stage and now Jacopo. These are the last two before me."

"With Jasper gone, I already had to change my tactics a bit.

"There is no one who can follow me and take me to 150 meters. Hopefully when Jasper gets better I can get back to a more traditional lead-out. For now I need to follow the right wheels and know which ones will be good wheels."

Despite the setback, Ewan said his sprint to the line was nearly perfect. After finding a gap among the faster riders and getting onto the wheel of Philipsen with a few meters to go, he was close to the stage winner until the end, but not fast enough to overtake him.

Mathieu van der Pol, who was leading Philipsen, was later demoted after he pushed past Biniam Guillemay to take the lead.

"I had an almost perfect sprint today. I got where I should have been, but I didn't have the legs to come around at the end. I am happy that I had the legs to win. But like I said before, everything has to go right."

"The surf wheel is one of my specialties, so I'm happy to do it, but I know it's not the best way. But I also know it's not the best way.

Whereas the loss of de Baist and Guarnieri forced Ewan to adapt and improvise, Philipsen, by contrast, enjoys the best readout in the peloton, thanks to a superstar in Van der Pol.

Normally, the Tour de France sprint races are headlined by the Sourdal-Quickstep train led by Mikhail Morkov, but so far in 2023, the stars of the classics are all headlining.

"Philipsen is leading the best riders in the world. Not only the best lead-out rider, but one of the strongest riders in general," Ewan said of the Milano-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix champion.

"So of course it's an advantage to have him, but Jasper is also flying. He has stepped up so much in the last year and a half. He's strong, he's fast, he has a very good team. I think he won the first two sprints because of the combination of all of that."

But sprinters are never invincible in the Tour. This victory will be especially significant for Ewan, who had problems earlier in the season.

"If you look at the positives, I think I'm getting closer," he said. I feel fast and I know I have the speed to win. But everything has to be perfect. Today I almost made it. It was nice to win and take some of the pressure off, but I'll keep working hard."

"(Second place) is a relief, but if I can win even one of these first two stages, I will be very relieved. We still have a chance. I'm positive and I'm positive the team can do it."