Britain’s Ethan Hayter sprinted to victory on stage five of the Tour of Britain to reclaim the leaders’ blue jersey just 24 hours after he lost it.

Overnight leader Wout van Aert was caught behind the crash and trails by eight seconds in the overall standings.

“I saw Doull drifting and I thought, ‘this isn’t good’,” Hayter said.

The Londoner added he “couldn’t quite believe the situation” after avoiding the crash on the final bend.

“I managed to squeeze through between his bike and the barrier and then you get a rush of adrenalin, so I was screaming at [team-mate Michal Kwiatkowski] to go,” the 22-year-old continued.

“There’s a lot of hard racing to come and it might not come down to time bonuses – there might be gaps tomorrow [Friday] and a couple of days after, so it’s going to be interesting, we’ll see what we can do.”

The race continues with a 198km stage from Carlisle to Gateshead on Friday.

Stage five results

1. Ethan Hayter (GB/Ineos Grenadiers 3hrs 33mins 01secs

2. Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita/Team Qhubeka Assos) Same time

3. Daniel McLay (GB/Team Arkea-Samsic)

4. Luke Lamperti (US/Trinity Racing)

5. Mark Cavendish (GB/Deceuninck-QuickStep)

6. Colin Joyce (US/Rally Cycling)

7. Michal Paluta (Pol/Global 6 Cycling)

8. Julian Alaphilippe (Fra/Deceuninck-QuickStep)

9. Gonzalo Serrano Rodriguez (Spa/Movistar Team)

10. Kristian Sbaragli (Ita/Alpecin-Fenix)

General classification

1. Ethan Hayter (GB/Ineos Grenadiers) 18hrs 17mins 42secs

2. Wout Van Aert (Bel/umbo-Visma) +8 secs

3. Julian Alaphilippe (Fra/Deceuninck-QuickStep) +19 secs

4. Mikkel Honore (Den/Deceuninck-QuickStep) +29 secs

5. Michael Woods (Can/Israel Start-up Nation) +48 secs

6. Rohan Dennis (Aus/Ineos Grenadiers) +52 secs

7. Daniel Martin (Ire/Israel Start-up Nation) +1 min 4 secs

8. Kristian Sbaragli (Ita/Alpecin-Fenix) +1min 21 secs

9. Mark Donovan (GB/Team DSM) +1min 42secs

10 Xandro Meurisse (Bel/Alpecin-Fenix) +1min 46secs