Cadel Evans heads into the second rest day of the Giro d'Italia as a comfortable leader of the race after safely defending his position in today's ninth stage. Admitting that Domenico Pozzovivo will be watched a bit closer in the future due to his strong move today, he made it clear that he had expected pre-race favourite Nairo Quintana to be stronger.

BMC Racing Team's Cadel Evans finished seventh on Sunday's summit finish at the Giro d'Italia to keep his overall lead on the eve of the race's second rest day. Pieter Weening won ORICA-GreenEDGE's third stage of the race in a two-up sprint against Davide Malacarne (Team Europcar).

But it was Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R La Mondiale) who posed the biggest danger to Evans, attacking late to finish 26 seconds ahead of Evans's group and earning a four-second time bonus for finishing third. He climbed from 10th to fourth overall, 1:20 off the lead.

"It came down to the last climb and there were some guys who were putting a bit on the line and gambling a little bit more," Evans said. "They are winning in this Giro on the stages. It was a bit more behind with the GC (general classification) guys controlling each other and a couple were a bit more careful to put it on the line.

"I didn’t respond to every attack from kilometre zero to the finish, no, but to the important ones, yes. Now Pozzovivo is moving up the classification and I won’t be the only rider considering him as a bigger rival in the general classification now. I imagine he’ll be watched a bit more closely from now on and it might be harder for him to win a stage. His team was very impressive yesterday.

"As for me, first I have to think of the General Classification, then I can think about stage finishes. For some teams, winning stages is what matters.. For today, I’m happy to retain the Maglia Rosa, and I’ll worry about stage wins later.

"Quintana is someone who hasn’t been as strong as we expected up to now, but he’ll get there. Last year he went from Liège to the Tour de France without racing was second overall. This year he’s come in to the Giro without racing for a while, but I expect he will find his legs.

“After the first 2 days in the mountains, it’s too early to say who’ll be strongest at the end of the Giro d’Italia, and I can only judge Quintana on the Tour de France last year, and his Giro so far. He hasn’t been going as strong as we expected, but I think he’ll get there. Pozzovivo and his team look very strong, and Aru, too, looks good.

"Between the Colombians, maybe there’ll be cooperation, maybe there won’t be. Sometimes there’s envy and jealousy among compatriots and sometimes whether it’s for friendship compatriots help each other and sometimes for jealousy or envy they ride against one another. I’ve certainly seen friendships between the Colombians but there are friendships between the Australians here on this race. That’s just all part of it.

"Like I said yesterday, every second of advantage I can get would be great. The Barolo time trial is certainly a place where I’d like to take time but I’ll just do the best time trial I can and then look at the results afterwards. I hope that a course suited to me should be to my advantage but we’ll see.

"I’ve prepared seriously for this Giro but I could work in a calmer manner because it’s not every day that you go out of your house and people ask you if you’re going to win the Giro d’Italia. When you’re a contender for the Tour, every day people ask you if you’re going to win the Tour and after a while that gets a bit tiring."

For the second straight day it was BMC Racing Team's Steve Morabito who paced Evans in the final kilometers. Morabito's effort followed a concerted chase by the BMC Racing Team to pull back 14 riders who broke away about 50 kilometers into the 172-km race and built a nearly nine-minute advantage.

"We have to be satisfied with our work so far," Evans said. "I am very very happy with the team. They are the ones who have put me in the position to be here now and they rode with the jersey very strongly in control. I think the guys will rest very happily tomorrow."

Evans leads Rigoberto Uran (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) by 57 seconds with Rafal Majka in third at 1:10. After Monday's rest day, 12 stages remain, including two individual time trials and six major mountain stages.