Blazin' Saddles: Can Froome turn it around? Important Vuelta questions answered

Who would have thought – the team criticised by so many fans for the clinical way in which they suck the life blood out of the Tour de France caught out napping on the back of the peloton at the start of the Vuelta's shortest stage...

They clearly weren't – that was half the problem. As the peloton stretched out under pressure from early attacks on the opening uphill drag, Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador were alert to the dangers. Meanwhile the camera panned back to show Chris Froome trundling along towards the back of the peloton with Leopold Konig, as if they were on a training jolly. Cue Contador's ambush attack: the race was turned on its head and Sky made to look like rank amateurs.

What was an entirely manageable 54-second deficit on Quintana grew to a huge 3:37 chasm by the time Froome – pale as his white jersey – trickled across the line at Aramon Formigal. Forgetting the two remaining summit finishes – after all, the two rivals have largely matched each other on the climbs so far – that means where Froome was required to take back 1.5 seconds per kilometre in Friday's 37km time trial, he now needs to pedal the best part of six seconds faster.

Well, you say that but in the Tour de France's opening time trial – which was admittedly hillier than the flat course in Calpe, but only 500m longer – Froome only managed to take 2:05 from Quintana. Factor in Froome's fatigue from a long season and the belief wearing the red jersey may give the Colombian, and it's not looking great for the former.

You're right – good memory. Two years ago, Quintana wore the red jersey for the 2014 Vuelta's stage 10 time trial – over a 36.7km course, incidentally – and he crashed acrobatically after fiddling with his shoe strap ahead of a sweeping bend. He ended up 82nd on the day and dropped to 11th before withdrawing the next day after breaking his collarbone in a separate incident. But here's the thing: even with his crash during the ITT Quintana only conceded 2:35 to Froome that day...

Bingo. If the triple Tour de France champion doesn't want to become a triple Vuelta a Espana runner-up he needs his team to help him pull off the kind of coup that Movistar and Tinkoff engineered on Sunday, or that Orica-BikeExchange produced on Saturday's stage to the Aubisque.

You've got it in one. After all, if rules were rules then the entire Sky team – besides Froome – would have been ejected from the race on Sunday evening for failing to finish within the time cut.

Well, once the splits occurred and it became obvious that a dropped peloton of 91 riders was not going to close the gap on Sunday's short but dramatic stage 15, there was a collective sitting-up as those caught out gambled on the good nature of the race commissaires. They came home almost 54 minutes down on the stage winner Gianluca Brambilla – which normally would have been around 25 minutes outside the time cut.

You're right. The rules, apparently, are only guidelines – and the race organisers clearly decided that wiping out half the field would have been detrimental to the sport, attracting sponsors, putting on a spectacle and all that jazz. You can see their point but it does set a dangerous precedent and raises more hot potatoes than a greasy spoon diner in East London.

Not even winning a stage – merely having a sway on potential outcomes of a stage. Take Monday's stage 16, for example: just two of the six riders in the break finished within the time limit the previous day, so those four others were much fresher. Then, when it came to the bunch sprint, the entire top 10 – plus a handful of others – had been amongst those taking an extra day off on Sunday.

Exactly – that was why it was an easy decision for the commissaires to give a stern warning but cast a blind eye. Still, it could have serious ramifications later in the race.

Indeed. Supposing Sky set a fast tempo en route to the race's ninth summit finish at Alto Mas de la Costa on Wednesday's stage 17 and blow the race apart resulting in a win for Froome and losses of over a minute for Quintana... all hell would break loose on the race, not to mention social media.

Not at all – that would be absurd. Sure, the ideal situation for everyone concerned (besides Quintana, quite naturally) would be for Froome to win on his own terms – by an individual attack, and in the time trial – but the team can't suddenly change the way they're going to race because they benefitted from a loop hole. That would be an admission of guilt: Sky would be less Death Star and more selfless Ewoks.

Indeed. Should the time cut have been enforced then Movistar would still have eight riders remaining and Tinkoff six. All on his own, even Froome wouldn't have had an answer to that kind of armoury.

Yes, in a nutshell. You get the impression that Sky's biggest detractors are rubbing their hands at the prospect of the team bouncing back to have some kind of influence on this race – just so they can spew forth bile and get all hot under the collar in bursts of 140 characters and less.

Tinkoff and Movistar's combined coup on Sunday aside, many teams and riders have played blinders. Look at Etixx-QuickStep: four stage wins (Gianni Meersman twice, David de la Cruz and Brambilla) and one day in red. Orica-BikeExchange continue their transformation to a GC force to be reckoned with – with both Esteban Chaves and Simon Yates in the top five, plus stage wins for Yates and Jens Keukeleire.

The towering Robert Gesink and his diminutive sidekick Kenny Elissonde have come into their own in the mountains. It's a cross-team, Little and Large combo which has really stolen the limelight with LottoNL-Jumbo's Gesink finally getting his Grand Tour win on the Aubisque days after being denied by Quintana at Lagos de Covadonga, and FDJ's Elissonde showing his maturity in the face of Omar Fraile's brazen youth to steal a march on the Spaniard in the polka dot jersey battle.

The oldest man in the race, Sergey Lagutin, also managed a day in polka dots on top of his stage win at La Camperona. Jak Bakelants, too, deserves special mention – not just for speaking his mind, but getting into so many breaks. A victory for the Belgian would be just – but woe betide if he's denied by one of the 'shamed 91'.

Froome will win on Wednesday and slash the deficit before moving within a minute and a half of Quintana after the time trial, which he will win as well. In between we may see a stage scalp for Fabio Felline. But I also envision a scenario where a rider who was not one of the peloton slowcoaches last Sunday finishes outside the time limit and refuses to leave the race accordingly, making a mockery of the race jury.

Then on the all-important penultimate stage Quintana will show his class in two ways: by dropping Froome but by letting Contador – by now third on GC – win the stage. Meersman will then make it a hat-trick in Madrid.