After his 2nd place of stage two, Roberto Ferrari was hopeful that he would get one final chance to sprint for the win in yesterday's penultimate stage of the Volta a Catalunya. However, his depleted Lampre-Merida team started to chase too late and so the breakaway stayed away.

With Chris Horner and Przemyslaw Niemiec both out of the race, Lampre-Merida have lost all GC options at the Volta a Catalunya and so their best chance of getting a result in the Spanish race was sprint success with Roberto Ferrari. The Italian had shown good form by taking 2nd on stage two and when the team had missed the break in yesterday's penultimate stage, they put their faith in their fast finishers.

However, the team left it to the Giant-Shimano team of triple stage winner Luka Mezgec to do all the early chase work and only started to contribute inside the final 40km of the stage. At that point, Giant-Shimano had emptied their tank and despite a bit of assistance from Lotto Belisol and Ag2r, it was too late for the Italian team.

"We knew we had to be careful in the early part of the race to try to get into the break," sports director Joxean Fernandez Matxin said. "Our riders have tried, but could not find the right action.

"Due to the wind, the break got a big advantage. We had interest in closing the gap, but did not have enough riders to finish off the chase, considering that Polanc was slowed down by a crash.

"I'm sorry not to be able to give Ferrari another opportunity in the final sprint."

You can read our preview of the final stage here.