Alessandro De Marchi wins in the mist, Fabio Aru retains red jersey

In the first of three back-to-back summit finishes in northern Spain, BMC's De Marchi, 29, dropped fellow Italian Salvatore Puccio (Team Sky) one kilometre from the mist-clad summit to take a second career win on the Vuelta in Fuente del Chivo.

De Marchi - winner of stage seven at Alcaudete last year in the colours of former team Cannondale - crossed the line 21 seconds ahead of Puccio to win the longest stage of the race - a 215km ride from the Basque capital of Vitoria into the Cantabrian mountains.

Spain's Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar) was third, Frenchman Mikael Cherel (Ag2R-La Mondiale) fourth and Colombian Carlos Quintero (Team Colombia) fifth – all coming home within a minute of De Marchi - as the day's main break held off the peloton to the bitter end.

“I never thought I’d be able to take a stage on this year’s race. I'm getting better after a difficult start to the season but I'm not sure I was the strongest today,” said De Marchi, whose first season at BMC has been hampered by injury.

“It was really difficult to get into the break and then the final climb was very tough. Cherel went a couple of times and I had to wait until I could use my strengths and strike the right blow. In the end all the waiting paid off.”

Colombian Nairo Quintana shrugged off his recent illness to become the first of the race favourites to cross the line, the Movistar rider finishing 3:32 down on De Marchi to take sixth place and move back into the top ten.

Seventh place Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) crossed the line shortly after to take one slender second back on race leader Aru, who saw his overall lead on the Spanish veteran cut to 26 seconds.

Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) was distanced in the final few kilometres but rallied to retain his third place on GC, dropping to 49 seconds behind Aru on GC.

Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) and Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) both finished in the mix to retain their places in the top five while Team Sky’s Mikel Nieve climbed above fellow Spaniard Dani Moreno (Katusha) into sixth place on GC while dropping to 2:10 behind Aru ahead of two more summit finishes prior to the second rest day.

Numerous attempts were made by riders – most notably De Marchi – to break away in a fast opening hour of racing in the Basque Country. The Italian’s persistence finally paid off when he was joined by Puccio, Cheral, Quintero and Rojas after 52km ahead of the first of three categorised climbs.

Cherel – who finished an impressive 18th place in July’s Tour de France – took maximum points over both the Cat.3 Puerto Estacas de Trueba and Cat.1 Puerto del Escudo as the break built up a maximum lead of ten minutes over the Astana-led peloton.

With Cherel the best-placed rider but trailing Aru by just over an hour in the standings, that break’s impressive lead was pretty much still intact as the leaders edged onto the deciding climb, the Alto Campoo.

The quintet shared pacing duties until 4km remaining when Cherel finally broke the deadlock with an attack as the road flattened out for a momentary uphill respite.

It was De Marchi whose counter-attack reeled in the Frenchman – but it was a case of deja-vu shortly after when Cherel put in another big attack.

Puccio, who had fought back after being earlier distanced, was first to latch onto Rojas’s wheel after the Spaniard leapt clear with 2km remaining, when the five escapees had practically come to a cat-and-mouse-style standstill.

With the road heading up into dense, cold mist, it was De Marchi who bridged over to his compatriot Puccio before using his experience as a previous Vuelta stage winner to double up as the logical winner.

Meanwhile the battle for the red jersey was heating up when Aru made an attack which only Quintana could initially follow.

Rodriguez, Chaves, Majka and Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2R-La Mondiale) dropped Dumoulin and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) as they reeled in their two rivals ahead of the final kilometre.

Quintana and Rodriguez then combined to distance Aru, who was starting to pay for his earlier efforts to shed his rivals. In the end Aru lost some precious seconds to Rodriguez and a revitalised Quintana, but extended his lead over the likes of Dumoulin and Valverde.

COMING UP: Sunday’s 176km stage 15 takes the riders into the stunning Picos de Europa National Park for a summit finish on the Alto del Sotres in the Asturias mountains of northern Spain.