Dutch sprint specialist Dylan Groenewegen made redemption for his woeful opening stage by claiming the seventh stage title in Tour de France, while Italian debutant Giulio Ciccone retained his yellow jersey on Friday.
Belgium's Dylan Teuns, the victor of stage six yesterday, is a further 26 seconds off the pace in third.
Team Ineos were happy to see the focus switch from Egan Bernal to Geraint Thomas at the Tour de France as Friday's long, slow day in the saddle allowed time for the dust to settle on a dramatic first mountain stage of the race.
Geraint Thomas, the defending champion, rode strongly on the final incline, getting ahead of his teammate Egan Bernal.
Teuns and Ciccone were rewarded for their enterprise and endurance on the bad climb to the Planche des Belles Filles ski station in the woody Vosges mountains of eastern France.
Saturday's 200km stage 8 has short but painful climbs, with eight, five and two bonus second awarded at the summit of the penultimate climb just 12.5km from the finish.
"Now it feels odd to be here with the yellow jersey myself", added Ciccone, who hails from the Abbruzzo region. Now 2:08 behind Thomas overall, Bardet will be hard-pressed to make up that deficit on even harder climbs to come in the Alps and Pyrenees.
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"When it came down to the two of us, we stayed calm, we talked about it", said Teuns, hinting that the pair did a deal for a win-win instead of risking it all by not collaborating and getting caught by the big guns. The days of riders actually sneaking off during boring grand tour stages (to go and buy ice creams, for instance, as Matt White did at the 2006 Giro d'Italia) are long gone.
"I don't listen to tips", said Thomas.
"When Julian Alaphilippe went, pretty early with 800m to go or something like that, I just had the confidence to let him go, ride my own tempo, then really try to drive it all the way to the line from about 350m out". The yellow jersey was never in his plans. His Trek-Segafredo team is built around Australian rider Richie Porte, who also got dropped by Thomas but limited the damage, riding in just 9 seconds after the Welshman.
The Team Ineos rider is 49 seconds adrift.
"A decent day", Thomas said.
Spending the day in the breakaway, Ciccone mopped up much of the mountains points on offer on the Tour's first hilly stage on 2019, but still sits in second in the climber's classification, 13 points behind Tim Wellens, Alaphilippe taking 11th position.
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