The BORA-hansgrohe sprinter came from well back to take the victory comfortably from Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) and Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott).
The German powerhouse said he wasn't about to repeat his efforts of the preceding stage.
"Yesterday I made the mistake to start sprinting from the front," Ackermann said. "But I didn’t repeat the same mistake again today.
"Everything went perfectly. It’s amazing that I won. It was certainly not an easy stage for the sprinters. There was a lot of climbing. There aren’t many sprinters at this race so it was one of my goals of the year to win a stage at the Dauphiné."
While Team Sky's Kwiatkowski didn't lose any time as his crash came within the final three kilometres, Impey grabbed the bonus seconds with his strong finish.
"I would have liked to win the stage but the bonus gives me the yellow jersey and it’s a massive bonus for today," Impey said. "Today obviously the sprinters’ teams were controlling. At the end, it looked like no one wanted to take the chase on. I knew I had some good chances to get the jersey if we’d come down to a bunch sprint.
"To ride a TTT in yellow is gonna be amazing. It brings me memories back from the Tour de France in 2013. It’s gonna be nice to start last. We’ll know everyone’s time on the road. Hopefully, it’s just the start of good things to come."
Antoine Duchesne (Groupama-FDJ), Pierre-Luc Perichon (Fortuneo-Samsic), Frederik Backaert (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Nikita Stalnov (Astana) escaped early at the start of the 179KM stage and built an advantage of over
six minutes after 50KM raced.
But they were kept on a tight leash, the gap reducing to three minutes and 40 seconds by the halfway mark.
Perichon scooped up the maximum KOM points out on the road and is now second in that competition behind teammate Brice Feillu on countback.
Only Stalnov remained by the final 10km mark and despite his desperate attempts to hang on, the peloton, driven by Mitchelton-Scott, swallowed him whole within the final one and a half kilometres.
The race continues with a pancake flat 35km team time trial. Expect huge gaps on GC after this race against the clock, setting the stage before the race heads up to the mountains.
Stage three will be streamed here and broadcast on SBS Viceland from 11:15pm AEST.
Stage 3 of the 2018 Critérium du Dauphiné - the team time trial (ASO) Source: ASO
More to come.
