By the end of the Vuelta, Domenico Pozzovivo is hoping his freshness that comes from not having ridden a full week of a Grand Tour this year will help him achieve a strong overall result.

"Freshness is all relative because I started my year early in Australia and I did a decent race down there too," Pozzovivo told Cyclingnews in Cordoba on Thursday. "I've still raced a lot, and on top of that, I've had to recover from an operation in January and I had to get over the crash in the Giro in May, so it was a season of playing catch-up in a lot of respects. I might be a little fresher than the riders who've done a Grand Tour, but not by much, because it's still been a demanding year."

He puts his time loss on stage two down to a lack of rhythm in races but says he has coped in the other hard finishes quite well so far.

"On the first summit finish, I didn't have the best sensations, but then I'd only done one small race before coming here, so I think I was missing a bit of race rhythm. I felt a lot better on Wednesday. I think I'm going quite well.”

When he is under pressure, the little Italian has pulled some great time trials out the bag since joining AG2R and is hoping he can do the same on stage 17 if he is still in with a shout of a high general ranking.

"In time trials where the average speed is under 45kph, I normally go pretty well. This one is a bit faster, except for the finale, so it will be more a case of defending myself, but in any case I don't think there'll be huge time gaps," Pozzovivo said.

Even though he is fresh, he says that trying to win the GC will be very hard but he wants to improve his sixth overall from 2013.

"Looking at the start list, I think aiming for final overall victory would be very, very difficult," Pozzovivo said. "But I am aiming for a place in top five, which would signify bettering my 6th place from two years ago, and it would also be a comeback after my Giro this year."