Axel Laurance edged a bunch sprint to take stage five of the Tour of Catalonia on Friday and earn his first World Tour win, while Tadej Pogacar still leads the race.

The French Alpecin-Deceuninck rider finished just ahead of stage four winner Marijn van den Berg with compatriot Bryan Coquard coming in third on the 167.3 kilometre route from Altafulla to Viladecans.

The final few kilometres were chaotic as teams tried to get organised and Laurance threw his bike over the line to finish centimetres ahead of the Dutchman on the slight uphill finale.

"It's really amazing ... to be able to win a stage of a World Tour race as a first year is really nice for sure," said 22-year-old Laurance.

Slovenian two-time Tour de France winner Pogacar maintained his position atop the general classification by two minutes and 27 seconds from Spaniard Mikel Landa as he finished in the bunch.

Saturday's stage six runs 154.4 km from Berga to Queralt and is the third and final mountainous challenge in the race, with UAE Team Emirates rider Pogacar aiming to effectively seal victory.

"Today was a super hard stage, one of the hardest in general of all stages until now," Pogacar told Teledeporte.

"It was exciting racing until the (end), I'm happy it's over and tomorrow is a big mountain day so let's go for it.

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow's stage, there's a big question mark all over it, a lot of climbing in a short period of time and it will be aggressive from the start."