Bauke Mollema (Belkin) and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) are some of the outsiders for this year's Vuelta a Espana and the duo had both entered the race with some doubts. Yesterday's first mountain stage gave confirmation that they are on track for a good performance and both now face the rest of the race with more optimism.

Bauke Mollema and Thibaut Pinot had entirely different experiences at the Tour de France. While the former had a fantastic race and finished 6th overall, the latter lost time on a descent and ended up abandoning the race with a sore throat.

Both have set their sights on Vuelta success, Mollema to confirm his status as a leading grand tour rider and Pinot to make amends for his disappointing home race. Both had, however, had their doubts prior to the race as none of them had raced an awful lot since the Tour.

Hence, both were happy to get through yesterday's first mountain stage safely. They finished in the group of main favourites that lost 14 seconds to stage winner Nicolas Roche (Saxo-Tinkoff) and are now well-positioned for a solid GC campaign.

As usual Pinot's main problem had been his lack of positioning ability.

“I’m satisfied," he said. "This was the first uphill finish. I won’t get too excited but I’m happy with my feelings. It makes me more optimistic for the end of the Vuelta. Before the start, I was kind of scared because I hadn’t raced much but it’s gone well in a climb that didn’t suit me much. I wasn’t well positioned at the bottom and I’ve had to make an effort to move up to the front with three kilometres to go because it was windy. I might have been able to get a better result but that’s not the most important.”

Mollema finished 9th on the stage and even though he wasn't on a very good day, he was happy with the result.

“It’s not been really my best day on a bike and I lost a couple of seconds at the very end because I’ve sprint from a bit too far behind," he said. "But it doesn’t matter much. I’m happy.”

“It was a bit of a crazy first day of a Grand Tour with an uphill finish, but I got through very well,” he explained. “Everyone is still fairly fresh and evenly matched."

Belkin co-captain Laurens Ten Dam lost contact in the final and lost 21 seconds to Roche. The Dutchman is, however, unsuited to this kind of explosive finish and was happy to stay with the best for most of the stage. He had had some reservations prior to the race following a below-par performance in the recent Tour des Fjords.

"The first road day was fine considering I'm coming from far,” he said. “I was really tired after the Tour de France. For me a long and steep climb is better; today’s last kilometre was a bit too explosive for me. I can build on this, though. I hope to get better over the next three weeks."

Sports director Erik Dekker remains confident his captains.

“Today, I received a confirmation of what I saw yesterday,” he said. “Our GC men are in a good shape. The others did a great job supporting them until the foot of the final climb.” 

The Vuelta continues today with an uphill finish on a category 3 climb. Starting at 15.00 you can follow the stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live.