Mark Cavendish hailed the teamwork of Columbia-HTC after he claimed the Tour de France stage win.

Cavendish followed up Sunday's victory to claim the 196.5km stage three from Marseille to La Grande-Motte ahead of Thor Hushovd (Cervelo TestTeam) and Cyril Lemoine (Skil-Shimano) thanks to another perfect sprint finish.

It was hard work for Columbia as, with today's 39km team time-trial stage around Montpellier looming, riders were unprepared to make the running at the front.

Cavendish said: "We were the only sprint team that wanted to ride today in the front group, but it worked out and the other teams had to ride behind anyway to chase us.

"You could really appreciate how strong we were as a squad and we took a lot of time out of the guys behind.

"It was a hard last kilometre, but I had five guys around me in the last build-up for the sprint.

"Mark [Renshaw] kept his cool and left it very late because there was a headwind but it worked out well."

Cavendish was part of a 27-man group, which included overall leader Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) and Lance Armstrong, but not his Astana team-mate and Tour favourite Alberto Contador, who pulled away in the closing 30km.

The group chased down an early breakaway quartet of Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis), Maxime Bouet (FDJ), Ruben Perez Moreno and Koen de Kort (Skil-Shimano) who could not maintain their lead in red-hot conditions in Provence.

The leading group, which also included all of the Columbia team but not Contador, then pulled away, establishing a lead of 30 seconds with 10km to go.

The pack were able to make no impact as the leaders entered the closing stages, and Cavendish again stormed through to claim the sixth stage win of his career.

He said: "There are eight sprint stages we have targeted here, so hopefully I'll get a few more before the end of the Tour, and one of them will be a win on the Champs Elysees."

Cancellara, who finished sixth in the same time as the leading trio, maintains the yellow jersey, 33 seconds clear of Tony Martin (Columbia) and 40 clear of Armstrong in the general classification.

Contador, who finished 49th, some 41 seconds back, is now 59 seconds off the pace, while Britain's Bradley Wiggins is fifth, a minute behind Cancellara.