Lotto Belisol's Andre Greipel won the fourth stage of the Eneco Tour in Vlijmen.
The 169.6km stage started in the rain at Essen heading for Vlijmen and there was an attack straight away with Pieter Jacobs (Topsport Vlaanderen), Ioannis Tamouridis (Euskaltel), Staf Scheirlinckx (Accent Jobs-Wanty) and Pim Ligthart (Vacansoleil) getting away.
Jacobs took the first Eneco Time Bonus sprint of the day as the quartet built up an initial lead of 5.40 which was down to 4.07 at the feedzone with 64kms to go.
He also took the second sprint to put the Topsport rider eleven seconds behind race leader Arnaud Demare of FDJ.
Katusha took over on the front and worked to bring the gap to the quartet down to 1.43 with just over 25 miles of racing in the stage left.
The Primus Checkpoint Sprint also went to Jacobs, who along with Tamouridis, Scheirlinckx and Ligthart, were only 49 seconds ahead going into the final thirty kilometres.
On the final lap of two 29km circuits and the peloton were now only thirty one seconds behind.
Scheirlinckx gave up the fight and returned to the peloton as Jacobs took the third Time Bonus sprint.
Ligthart punctured and had to drop to the back of the peloton to get a replacement wheel, ruling him out of any chance of winning the stage with fifteen kilometres to go.
Jacobs sat up, knowing his work for the day was done and although, Tamouridis carried on until the ten to go mark, the inevitable happened and he was mopped up by the peloton.
A kilometre later and Matt Hayment of Team Sky took the final Primus Checkpoint before Belkin's Theo Bos abandoned.
On cobbled roads, there was a big crash towards the front of the peloton which took down a number of riders including Ventoso and a Sky rider.
Riders were strung out all over the road as they headed for the line and it was Lotto's Andre Greipel who won in a time of 3.47.35 ahead of Nizzolo, Boom and Pettachi.
Lars Boom now leads the race by a second from Greipel as the race goes into Boom's home town of Sittard for a time trial tomorrow.