Pinot bounced back strongly in today's stage after a horror day out in Lausanne, where he crashed before being struck in the face by a soigneur holding a feed bag moments later.
The Frenchman made it into the proper break of the day and initially stayed back when Jungels made his decisive move with 65 kilometres to go, as the group allowed the Luxembourger to accumulate a lead of nearly two minutes.
But as the race reached its last 20 kilometres, Pinot made the decision to give chase and launched himself in a lone pursuit of Jungels, bringing the gap down to as little as 19 seconds on the final climb of the day.
Unfortunately for the Frenchman, that was as far as he went with Jungels riding home to the victory before an exhausted Pinot was caught by a chasing duo of Jonathan Castroviejo (INEOS Grenadiers) and Carlos Verona (Movistar), settling for fourth on the stage.
“I’ve got some regrets because I could have attacked a bit earlier but it’s always easier to find that out afterwards," Pinot said after the stage.
"I believed in the victory. But the last climb wasn’t hard enough, especially in the last three kilometres. It was flattening at some point and we rode on the big chainring again. It broke my rhythm.
"Jungels has more strength than me on such terrain and I had produced a brutal effort to regain around two minutes just before.
Fortunately for Pinot, he's able to go into the rest day to recover after expending a huge amount of energy chasing Jungels, and is optimistic he can challenge for more stages in the next two weeks of the race given how his legs performed.
"It reassures me on my condition," Pinot said of his efforts.
"I see that I still lack a bit of energy but it’s a good sign that I’m getting better and better.
"In the second and third weeks, there are stages that suit me even better.”
The Tour de France now enters a rest day, with racing resuming on Tuesday night (AEST) with a 148-kilometre stage from Morzine les Portes du Soleil to Megeve. Watch all the action live from 9:20pm AEST on the SBS SKODA Tour Tracker, or 9:30pm AEST on SBS and SBS On Demand.
