in the fourth stage, aucouturier had a clear lead and seemed set to win a third successive stage, but was caught using the slipstream of a car, and was removed from the race. swiss charles laeser (who had abandoned in the 3rd stage) took the victory, becoming the first non-french winner. as in the third stage, the cyclists departed in two groups, and laeser was in the second group because he was no longer contending for the general classification. laeser finished more than 50 minutes after a group of six cyclists, but he had travelled the distance 4 minutes faster than them, so he was declared the winner.