Chris Froome has expressed sympathy with Alberto Contador after the Spaniard lost more time at the Tour de France on stage five.
Contador was already 48 seconds behind his rivals for overall victory following two crashes in the opening two stages, and he lost another 33 seconds on Wednesday as he continued to struggle with superficial impact injuries.
The Tinkoff leader is now 1min 21sec down on the likes of Froome and Nairo Quintana and could lose more ground when the race reaches the Pyrenees this weekend.
Froome said: "With Alberto, that's quite normal after a big crash or the couple of big crashes that he has had.
"No one wants to see that, ourselves included. I would rather gain time in the mountains from him, not because he is hurt and injured and suffering."
Stage five tackled four categorised climbs in the final 40km and was raced so quickly that only 20 riders were left in the peloton at the finish.
Froome was happy to see out the stage safely and is now looking forward to the Tour's first high-mountain tests on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
He added: "For us it was just about staying up front. Those descents were pretty tricky, pretty dangerous, and it was about not really losing any time to other GC [general classification] guys.
"It's one more day down now. It was more about just keeping out of trouble because the big GC days are still to come."
The Tour continues on Thursday with a 190.5km sixth stage from Arpajon-sur-Cere to Montauban. Find out more about the route in a our race guide and follow the stage with our live blog from 1pm BST.