Race favourites Alejandro Valverde and Oscar Pereiro also lost time to Carlos Sastre yesterday, dropping seven seconds, but their directeur sportif Alfonso Galilea said he was happy with his team's runner-up position. "We had the best time, but CSC have just gone quicker," he said at the finish. "We think that we have done a very good TTT but CSC has come to the Vuelta with a team of very, very good time trial riders. It is a short team time trial and it is very difficult to fight against a team like that here.
"But in this moment we are happy. We will place second or maybe third, depending on how Rabobank get on [They were yet to finish at that point]. So I think it is a very good time for us. I am happy with that."
