For the second day in a row, Samuel Sanchez suffered in the Vuelta a Espana and dropped another spot in the overall standings. His BMC team hopes that he will bounce back in tomorrow's queen stage.

BMC Racing Team's Samuel Sánchez slipped from seventh to eighth overall following the second straight summit finish Sunday at the Vuelta a España. Much like Saturday's stage, Sánchez was unable to follow when the riders ahead of him on the general classification accelerated on the lower slopes of the final climb.

"Samuel was the only guy from our team in the front group, but he was not able to follow the best," BMC Racing Team Sport Director Valerio Piva said.

Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre-Merida) survived from the day's breakaway to take the stage win, five seconds ahead of Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) and Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha Team). Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) was next to finish, a further five seconds back, to keep the race lead.

Sánchez placed 13th, 1:46 back, and dropped to 5:02 behind Contador in the overall standings. One more mountain-top finish remains Monday before the race enjoys its second rest day Tuesday.

"He is OK," Piva said of Sánchez. " Tomorrow is also a very hard stage. We will see if he has a better feeling. Today he was not able to stay with the best."