Tinkoff's Alberto Contador took the win on the Criterium du Dauphine.
The opening stage of this annual race started with a 3.9km mountain prologue in Les Gets.
Zico Waeytens was first down the ramp on a stage which had ramps of upto 20% but it was Louis Meintjes who set the quickest time so far with a time of 12:30, which was almost two minutes quicker than Waeytens.
British rider Adam Yates of Orica GreenEdge set a new fastest time of 12.07 which was fourteen seconds quicker than Michal Kwiatkowski of Team Sky.
Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-QuickStep) was next to go fastest with a time of 12.00, more than a minute quicker than Tony Martin who finished in 13.02.
The question was who was going to be the first rider to get under twelve minutes and the answer was Chris Froome of Team Sky. The twice Tour De France winner, set a new time to beat of 11.49 at an average speed of 20.31kmph, shortly after another British rider in Stephen Cummings of Dimension Data finished in 12:29.
Speaking about his time, Froome said: “That was a really hard 4-km course. It was tough. I was running out of legs. I decided to start early because it's been rainy later in the afternoon those past few days and I also wanted to get more recovery time ahead of tomorrow. I'm happy with that. Just the feeling makes me happy. I feel like I'm in good shape now. I still have some work to do and I hope to keep the momentum till the Tour de France.”
The rain started to come down as Edvald Boasson-Hagen of Dimension-Data and Roman Kreuziger of Tinkoff were on the road.
Team Sky's Wout Poels was the final rider to depart, a couple of minutes after Alberto Contador of Tinkoff had set off.
Contador past Vichot whilst Dan Martin finished just eight seconds behind Chris Froome's time.
The Spaniard continued to power away and finished in 11.37 with Richie Porte of BMC then finishing in 11.42.
Poels finished in sixth place as Albert Contador took the victory.
Result
1 Contador 11.36
2 Porte+6
3 Froome+13
4 Martin+21
5 Alaphilippe+24
6 Poels+25
7 Bardet+29
8 A Yates+31
9 Rosa+37
10 Lopez +39