SIMON Yates will keep looking for opportunities to win a stage of the Tour de France as he protects his lead in the young riders' classification.

The 24-year-old's grip on the white jersey – for the best young rider in the Tour – was strengthened considerably by the end of Sunday's incident-packed stage nine from Nantua to Chambery, as his lead went from 28 seconds over Frenchman Pierre Latour to 2mins 58secs over South African Louis Meintjes.

With his main focus this year on the general classification and the battle for white, Yates knows he will not be allowed to join any breakaways, while targeting a single stage could cost him a bad day down the line.

However, the Bury-born Orica-Scott rider does not want to miss the chance to claim a first Tour stage win of his career if it comes his way.

"It's about how, where and when," said Yates. "For sure I'm still too close in the GC to be allowed any space to move in the breakaways, but if I can be there in the final with the biggest guys, we'll see.

"It depends how the next few hard days go, but for sure I'm always looking for that opportunity to win a stage."

Yates is racing in the Tour for the third time. He made his debut in 2014 with a brief simply to gain experience of the world's biggest cycling race, and then lined up again in 2015 to hunt individual stages.

The goal this time is to become only the second Brit ever to win the white jersey, matching the achievement of his twin brother Adam 12 months ago.

Simon has already shown he can claim stage honours and still maintain a top-10 position in a grand tour, winning stage six of last year's Vuelta a Espana on his way to sixth place overall.

"The Vuelta last year was my first real crack at going for the GC on a grand tour and I managed to make it into the top 10," he said.

"I had a few average days but I didn't have any bad days. I was pretty decent all the way through and that's what I've got to do again.

"You can't have bad days. You can have average days but if you have a real stinker nobody's waiting for you."

Sunday's stage saw major upheaval in the battle for the yellow jersey. Team Sky's Chris Froome extended his advantage to 18 seconds over Italian Fabian Aru, but only after losing team-mate Geraint Thomas – second overall at the start of the day – to a broken collarbone while rival Richie Porte also crashed out.

The race exploded into life on the Mont du Chat, the last of three hors categorie climbs on the day, and considered one of the hardest in France.

Yates was able to hang with the elite climbers most of the way up, eventually dropping when Aru made his controversial attack while Froome was dealing with a mechanical problem.

Aru finished fifth on the day, in the same group as stage winner Rigoberto Uran and Froome, who crossed the line in third, while Yates was part of a second group 75 seconds back – crucially ahead of his rivals for white.

"When we came to the final climb all the guys I would consider my rivals were still there," he said. "I was pretty tired when we started the final climb and thought, 'Oooh, this could be pretty difficult'.

"But when the guys started riding hard I could see the others were hurting and they started to get dropped, with only really Louis able to hang on.

"I was at my maximum, I was full gas. It's not like I could squeeze out anything more but it was enough. I'm happy with how it turned out."

After yesterday's rest day, the Tour gets going again today, with a couple of flat stages for the sprinters before entering the Pyrenees.