The Quick Step Team, in particular, hadn't sent any riders into the breakaway, so they were now firmly controlling the time gap between the peloton and the breakaway group.
So far, they had not only swallowed up all the riders dropped from the First Category Climb, but they were also only about two minutes behind the leading group.
As we all know, that's not a significant time gap on a climb.
Furthermore, in the breakaway group, aside from Castrillo—this Vuelta a España's most dazzling rookie—who would willingly work with Sivakov, the other five riders were all support men planted by their respective GC teams to aid their leaders' future attacks—
Whether it was Vlasov, Amiel, Pash, or the others, they would never take a turn pulling on the final climb.
So, if Sivakov and Castrillo truly wanted to win from the breakaway, they had to drop those GC teams' domestiques completely, and do it as early as possible before the HC Level climb began.
