"We were three of us and this made me more comfortable."

Those were the words of Astana's Mikel Landa after stage eighteen Giro d'Italia. Landa was hit by another rider and nearly fell on the last climb and he had to change wheel losing time from the first group.

Landa and his teammates Fabio Aru and Tanel Kangert did almost a time trial to recover the top position losing only 1m 13s to the pink jersey Alberto Contador of Spain.

Landa remains in second place 5:15 behind the Spanish race leader, with Aru still third overall and also leader of the Best Young Rider classification with more than 50 minutes on the second-placed rider. Astana Pro Team still leads the Teams Classification by more than 20 minutes with three days of racing to go.

“I think he (Contador) saw the opportunity to make me suffer and he took it, and I’ve lost a minute and a half,” Landa said. “He took advantage the same way that I did on the Mortirolo. Certainly they were angry about what had happened the other day and they took advantage of the situation. Things like that happen. The race is the race, and he took his opportunity. Our objective is the keep these two positions on the podium and try to win another stage.”

“If I’d had the legs, I’d have gone with Contador,” Aru said after the stage. “When he attacked he was very strong. There wasn’t much we could do. "Today was all quiet until the climb when there was a crash in which some of my teammates were involved. We did our best, we arrived in a small group, limiting the damage. We are not satisfied, but we have two tough days. Let's see what we can invent.

"My feelings? Today we did the climb really fast. We'll see about what we expect in the coming days. I did not have the legs to follow Alberto, otherwise I would not have given up. I want to thank my team and especially Tanel Kangert who gave a big hand to Mikel and me."