Bonjour le Tour! Hello and welcome to live coverage of Stage 17 of the Tour de France - a lumpy 200km ride from the historic Pont du Gard to Gap.

It's quite blustery out there, which will be a tonic for the riders in this heat. They're currently riding uphill towards the base of the first categorised climb with the break 8'45" ahead of the pack.

Spectacular scenery today as the riders head right towards Mont Ventoux. They'll be happy to know that they're not heading up the Giant of Provence in today's fierce heat. The gap is up to eight minutes.

The advantage continues to grow. The break now has more then seven minutes which will put Meurisse above Romain Bardet into virtual 18th place. But the gap up to 17th place is another eight minutes and so he'll need a lot more time is he wants to rise further up the standings...

The Italian Andrea Pasqualon (Wanty-Gobert) is the only rider interested in intermediate sprint points. He zips clear to pocket the prize money and 20 points which puts him up to 73pts and, er, 13th place in the green jersey standings. Thomas De Gendt goes over in second place. The gap is six minutes now.

The Deceuninck-QuickStep team of Julian Alaphilippe, the yellow jersey, have come to the front to keep tabs on the situation, as the unwritten rules of the Tour dictates. They have no interest in chasing down this break, but they have a duty to lead things given that their man is in yellow. Intermediate sprint coming up.

Chase over! After some pressure from Peter Sagan, the green jersey, Total-Direct Energie finally give up the ghost and call it a day. The gap stretches to four minutes and it looks like our winner today will be from this group of 33 riders up the road.

The gap is growing and so the Total team would be better of directing their energy into other things, such as picking up water bottles and keeping hydrated. It's 2'30" now.

The gap grows to above two minutes now but break are still having to work for this advantage.

An interesting stat here: only seven teams have posted wins so far in this year's Tour and so 15 teams are still without a win. Could today be the day, or will greedy Lotto Soudal or Mitchelton-Scott get another?

Peter Sagan, who leads the green jersey standings by 309pts to Elia Viviani's 224pts, is joining Orla and the boys in the Breakaway after today's stage. Which should be interesting, to say the least.

The average pace so far today is a ridiculous 55.58km/h. That two-man chase came to nothing and Total-Direct Energie now have five riders on the front of the pack trying to bring the break to heel. It's a futile effort but they're doing so so that they can look their manager Jean-Rene Bernaudeau in the eye later today after the stage, when the hairdryer is bound to come out.

Two riders have gone clear of the pack and are trying to bridge over: Anthony Turgis (Total-Direct Energie) and Elie Gesbert (Arkea-Samsic). But the peloton, who trail the leaders now by 1'10", are having nothing of it.

The 33 riders in this break (courtesy of LeTour's official website) are: Daniel Oss and Lukas Pöstlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe), Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Alexis Gougeard (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-Merida), Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), Omar Fraile and Gorka Izagirre (Astana), Simon Clarke and Tom Scully (EF Education First), Chris Juul-Jensen and Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-Scott), Greg van Avermaet and Michael Schär (CCC), Sven Erik Bystrom, Rui Costa, Sergio Henao and Vegard Stake Laengen (UAE Team Emirates), Bauke Mollema, Thomas Skujins and Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo), Nicolas Roche (Sunweb), Natnael Berhane, Jesús Herrada, Anthony Pérez and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Cofidis), Thomas de Gendt and Jens Keukeleire (Lotto-Soudal), Nils Politt (Katusha-Alpecin), Xandro Meurisse and Andrea Pasqualon (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Edvald Boasson Hagen and Ben King (Dimension Data).

Bad luck for Magnus Cort Nielsen, who picks up a flat tyre while in the break. That will spell the end to his time and bring their numbers down to 33.

The break's advantage is up to 45 seconds but it's still a fierce battle because the front of the peloton is having nothing of this - stringing out the riders behind them and tailing a few of them off, including Team Ineos' Wout Poels.

The best-placed rider on GC in this break is Xandro Meurisse (Wanty-Gobert) who is 28'25" down in 19th place. The chase is being led by Sunweb, who have a rider in this break, but who clearly want to inveigle Michael Matthews into it as well.

Some names for you in this big break: Mollema, Herrada, Van Avermaet, Roche, Stuyven, Trentin, Izagirre, Costa, Teuns, Boasson Hagen, De Gendt, Fraile, Politt, King, Skujins, Oss, Berhane, Nielsen, Gougeard, Asgreen... The gap is 25 seconds but there's a fierce chase from the teams who have missed the break, primarily Total-Direct Energie and Arkea-Samsic.