ALEXANDER Kamp outsprinted Chris Lawless on stage three of the Tour de Yorkshire but the Team Ineos man did enough to take the overall lead of the race.

Lawless came off the wheel of team-mate Owain Doull to launch his sprint on the left-hand side just as Kamp burst down the right, and it was the Riwal Readynez rider who took victory at the line to deny Ineos a first win in their new colours.

But the race leader's blue jersey will bear the Ineos name on Sunday with Lawless now the overall leader of the race, on the same time as Kamp.

Kamp said: “It was hard in the crosswinds but my team did a terrific job and I had some power left to finish it off at the end with a good sprint. I didn’t think too much and went with my instinct, and luckily I won. It was a fantastic victory and I’m in good shape so hopefully I can still be in contention tomorrow.”

Lawless said: “I’m a bit disappointed about not winning the stage but it’s always nice to be leading the race and this is a bonus for us. Tomorrow is a hard stage and I’m going quite well but I’m a sprinter, not a climber, and we’ll have to see if it’s beyond what I can do. I’ll try my best to go until the end and we’ll see how it goes.”

CCC's Greg Van Avermaet, defending champion here, was third on the day to sit in third overall, six seconds back.

The 132km stage from Bridlington came down to a selective sprint on the seafront as waves lapped over the wall and onto the road while riders raced by.

Nineteen riders had arrived together in Scarborough having broken away when crosswinds ripped through the peloton west of Whitby, with the group racing clear as it turned to a tailwind on the road back south.

Team Ineos, including Chris Froome, did much of the work to split the race apart into echelons with a little over 50km of the stage to go.

The CCC team of defending champion Van Avermaet were quick to latch on as a select group broke away.

Opening stage winner Jesper Asselman of Roompot-Charles kept up initially, but was dropped on the final categorised climb of the day in Ugglebarnby and could not recover.

It was another day of brutal weather conditions on the Tour. Though things had improved from the hail, rain and sleet the women faced over the same roads in the morning, the peloton was battered by the same frigid winds, a headwind for the first 65km of the day.

Ineos then used those winds to their advantage as the race split apart, and while it was not enough for the stage victory they will go into Sunday's decisive final stage well placed.

Froome is one of 13 riders 10 seconds off the overall lead along with three of his team-mates, while there are substantial gaps to many other hopefuls.

The Tour concludes with a 175km stage from Halifax to Leeds that features well over 3,000 metres of climbing through the Yorkshire Dales.