Tejay van Garderen, in 15th place, was the BMC Racing Team's best finisher in Sunday's hilltop finish at the Vuelta a España as teammate Peter Velits conceded the overall lead.

Van Garderen finished 45 seconds behind stage winner Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEDGE), who out-dueled Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant-Alpecin). Nicolas Roche (Team Sky) was third, nine seconds later. Velits, who wore the leader's red jersey after the BMC Racing Team won Saturday's team time trial, finished 60th, 4:22 back.

The 158.7-kilometer race was marred by a massive crash with 30 kilometers to go. More than two dozen riders went down at high speed and three-quarters of the peloton was held up. But no BMC Racing Team riders were involved in that crash. However, a few kilometers later, Marcus Burghardt crashed.He managed to finish and was to be examined at a local hospital where it was revealed nothing was broken. However, his left knee is heavily bruised.

"We will see for tomorrow", Burghardt said. "I am hoping for a miracle because if it is like this tomorrow, there is no way I can race. But we have a good medical staff here."