Yet another Vuelta a España summit finish saw race leader Enric Mas gain more time on arch-rival Primož Roglič, but on this occasion Mas recognised that when he opened up a gap near the top of the Sierra de la Pandera, it was thanks to a teammate, not himself.
Just as on the stage to Calar Alto two days earlier, Mas' teammate Raúl García Pierna had made it into the early break, and once again the two joined forces at a crucial moment in the stage.
With less than two kilometres to go, when García Pierna opened up the throttle, Mas could follow, as could Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) while Roglič - previously seeming much stronger than he had done on the Calar Alto climb and only slightly distanced - could not respond.
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Those gaps remained in place all the way to the line, with the result that Mas could claim another 25 seconds, and Roglič, now 2:10 down on the Vuelta leader, dropped to third overall, behind Gall.
Even if Mas did not manage to show the same kind of climbing superiority that he has done in Aitana or Calar Alto, then, the end result was what counts and once again the momentum remained with the race leader. Roglič has not been dealt a decisive blow but it was no surprise that Mas was in an ebullient mood afterwards, particularly as Sierra de la Pandera was where he lost around 30 seconds to the Slovenian back in 2022. This time, the boot remained on the other foot.
"It's true that today's time gap was thanks to Raúl but really the whole team has helped," Mas said, with Ivan Romeo in particularly once again working exceptionally hard for him again on the lower slopes of the crucial climb.
"These kinds of gaps calm me down, because it was very important to gain more time, and today we really did benefit from that.
"I put in a couple of attacks, but it was more to test my rivals than anything else, and see how they responded."
Asked specificaly how García Pierna and he had managed to drop Roglič, Mas joked that, "Raúl went so hard that he almost dropped me. It was a key moment that allowed me to get that time gap".
The strategy, putting Pablo Castrillo and García Pierna into the break, was a carbon copy of the one Movistar had devised for stage 12, but Mas insisted that it was "just one of several we'd had in the bus this morning".
"One of them worked out, and that was it. I just have to thank the whole team for the work they did.
"I have bad memories of this climb, Primož got nearly half a minute on me back in 2022 here, so the contrast is a big one, and fortunately in my favour."
Mas will now face the next three much easier stages and the second rest day on Monday feeling calmer given he now has an advantage that is continuing to increase on each mountain stage. But if he recognised at one point after the stage, that he "was keen to win the Vuelta", Mas was in no way taking for granted that he could be sure of the final victory, even with a bigger lead than 24 hours earlier.
"There's still more than one week to go, anything can happen, but for now I'm enjoying being in the red jersey," Mas concluded. "I have to be happy and proud at the end of it all."
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