After surviving the first three days of the Ruta del Sol, today’s time trial and tomorrow’s summit finish will be key to Wout Poels winning his second successive stage race in Spain after victory in Valencia.

“I feel good and Valencia was only a little while ago, so hopefully I’ll be able to do something similar here,” Poels said at the start of stage 2 on Thursday to Cyclingnews.

Speaking about today’s 21km time trial around Alhaurin de la Torre, Poels said the course suits him quite well as it is devoid of lots of power sections.

“The time trial is more technical here, but that’s better for me because I’m not like a power rider on the flat, so I think it’s a good TT for the general classification for me.”

Poels, who has always started well, says he isn’t worried about peaking too early and just wants to win as often as possible while he has form.

“I trained very hard in the winter and it was also the plan to be very good, so it worked out well," said Poels when asked if he expected to be in such top shape at this stage. "I didn’t expect to win the time trial against the specialists in Valencia - I thought I’d be in the top 10 - but it was really nice to take this step and have the form. When you’ve got the form, it’s better to take what you can take."