The reigning Italian national time trial champion was 22 seconds behind Cancellara's winning time of 27:56 over 24.1 kilometres. Pinotti said despite being unable to repeat his victory in the time trial on this same course as last year, he was pleased with his performance.

“Being that it is almost completely flat, it was more about absolute power,” Pinotti said. “Cancellara is heavier than me and has been multi-time world champion in the time trial so I can be happy with my result. In terms of power, I managed to do a better effort than I did last year. And keeping within one second per kilometre of him was a good result.”

The BMC Racing Team also placed Mathias Frank 12th (1’21” back) and Dominik Nerz 14th (1’22” back) in the top 15 as Frank climbed into 12th overall. Previous race leader Kevin Seeldraeyers (Astana Pro Team) was unseated by Riccardo Zoidl (Team Gourmetfein-Simplon), who finished 15th. Sunday's final stage is 122.8 km, capped off with eight, 5.6km laps in the finish city of Wien.