( CNN ) -- Slovakian Peter Sagan made up for a series of near misses to claim his first stage win on this year 's Tour de France in Albi Friday . He burst clear after 205.5km from Montepellier to win easily from Germany 's John Degenkolb ( Argos Shimano ) and Italian Daniele Bennati ( Saxo-Tinkoff ) . South African Daryl Impey held on to the race leader 's yellow jersey after claiming it the previous day from Orica-GreenEdge teammate Simon Gerrans of Australia . Sagan , who has already taken a stranglehold on the green points jersey he won for the first time in last year 's Tour , has been denied victory on four previous stages , but made no mistake this time after superb work from his Cannondale team . They pushed on after the second of the day 's climb which left other star sprinters such as Mark Cavendish of Britain and Germany 's Andre Greipel , winner of stage six , trailing . They came home in an 84-strong group nearly 15 minutes down , leaving Sagan to pay his compliments to his helpers . `` This was a show of how strong we are as a team , '' he told the official Tour de France website . `` Even if it 's not an ideal stage for me , I 'll keep on trying . `` We did a lot of work on the second climb and we dropped the sprinters and the team started to believe that we could do well . '' Impey , the first South African to don the yellow jersey , admitted it had been tough to hold on to it . `` There was a moment on the second climb that the pressure was on , but we handled it pretty well , '' he said . `` But I was happy to see the top of that climb , that 's for sure . '' Sagan now has a lead of over 100 points in the battle for green , but Saturday will see the race for yellow hot up as the peloton hit the Pyrenees for the first time in the eighth stage over 195km from Castres to Ax 3 Domaines . Impey is expected to cede the jersey as race favorites such as Chris Froome and Alberto Contador make their bid for overall domination in the mountains .
John Degenkolb wins seventh stage of Tour de France . Slovakian star wins from Daryl Impey and Peter Sagan . Italian Daniele Bennati retains yellow jersey . Race hits Pyrenees Saturday .