Chris Sutton rounded off a hugely-successful Brixia Tour for Team Sky by sprinting to second place on the final stage in Orzinuovi.

The Australian, who claimed his second victory of the season on Friday, was right to the fore again as the bunch hurtled into the destination town and was only narrowly defeated in a chaotic finish by Roberto Ferrari (De Rosa).

And Morris Possoni was also celebrating his highest-placed general classification position of the season by finishing in second overall behind Colnago-CSF's Domenico Pozzovivo. Ireland's Daniel Martin (Garmin) completed the podium in third.

Sports director Marcus Ljungqvist was delighted with the outcome of the five-day tour and explained how the race had reached its conclusion.

He said: "It was full-gas from the start today as we moved out of Chiari and on to those six, 17.5km laps at the finish. [Ben] Swifty managed to get himself into an early eight-man breakaway but he didn't do too much work because we wanted to keep him as fresh as possible to help CJ [Sutton] in the closing stages.

"It was good to have a guy out there though because it meant we didn't have to do any work in chasing it down and it was left up to Colnago, Lampre and De Rosa to share the responsibility instead.

"The last of the escapees were eventually swept up with about 15km to go, but Swifty had dropped back before then to get ready to do his job in the closing stages. All the guys worked hard again - it was a little bit untidy in the bunch towards the end, but at 1km to go we still had Ian [Stannard], Swifty and [Davide] Viga and they led CJ out really well.

"It was really close at the finish and CJ was only denied his second win by a matter of millimetres."

Ljungqvist felt Possoni's podium place was just reward for his efforts in recent months and admitted the tour had been hugely-productive in terms of the team's development.

He added: "It's a nice result for Morris and we're really pleased for him. It's been a very successful tour all round and myself and Dan [Hunt] are super happy. We've enjoyed racing here this week; there are a few issues with the traffic that need to be addressed but otherwise it's a nice little race.

"All our guys are coming out of it feeling stronger than when they went in and it will definitely stand them in good stead for the rest of the season."