Defending champion Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) was unable to follow stage winner Chris Froome (Sky) on yesterday's queen stage of Tirreno-Adriatico and ended up chasing with Alberto Contador (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) and Mauro Santambrogio (Vini Fantini). They never caught their British GC rival, and the Italian was unimpressed by the effort from the multiple Spanish grand tour winner.

Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) had entered this year's edition of Tirreno-Adriatico with some caution and claimed that his form was not up to the level of the winning condition that carried him to last year's overall victory. By finishing third on yesterday's queen stage he put any doubt to rest and was clearly one of the strongest riders in the race.

Nibali had, however, some regret. His time loss to Chris Froome will make overall victory difficult. With Froome up the road, he tried to limit the damage, but was left to do all the work in the three-man chasing group.

With Santambrogio's presence somewhat of a surprise Nibali had hoped for assistance from the peloton's most decorated GC rider. Clearly on his limit Contador refused to cooperate, and Nibali was critical of the Spanish rider's performance.

"I asked Contador - 'Hey, why don't you pull through?'," Nibali explained in an Astana press release. "All I got was a stone face."

Sport director optimistic

Nibali is now third in GC 16 seconds behind new GC leader Michael Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) and 12 seconds behind Froome. With a hard mountain stage, a difficult, hilly stage and a short time trial coming up the terrain is there to make up lost time.

Even if Froome is a stronger time triallist and proved superior climbing ability in yesterday's stage, sport director Alexander Shefer was a happy man.

"This was a very, very good day for us," he told. "Tomorrow is another hard mountain stage, more than 230km, and Monday is a day with more than 4000m of up and down. Vincenzo went to the front and made the race difficult for everybody, and it will come down to the time trial on Tuesday because of this work today."

"Whoever can recover from today and the next two stages will be the strongest for the final time trial, and for us that is a perfect scenario."

With today's stage being very long and in difficult terrain team support will be crucial as the peloton takes on the route towards the classical finish on the steep hill in Chieti. With Fredrik Kessiakoff in the early break yesterday, Shefer was optimistic that Nibali is surrounded by a strong teammates.

"We knew that this day would see a lot of very tired riders at the start line, so our plan was to make the first breakaway of the day," Shefer said. "Fredrik Kessiakoff did that, and that allowed us to stay back in the peloton and preserve our strength for the final climb."

With Kessiakoff, Janez Brajkovic, Paolo Tiralongo and Valerio Agnoli Nibali will certainly be well supported when he arrives in Chieti this afternoon.