Key Takeaways: Vuelta a España Stage 15

Breaking down how a brutal mountain stage delivered a shocking upset & taking stock of where things stand on the Vuelta's first rest day

Atop the mist-covered brutal climb to Cuitu Negru, Pablo Castrillo delivered yet another stage win for his underdog Equipo-Kern-Pharma team on yesterday’s Stage 15 of the Vuelta a España. After an extremely fast opening climb, Castrillo and the breakaway finally rode clear, with two UAE riders, Marc Soler and Jay Vine, driving the pace for their teammate Pavel Sivakov, who was looking to move up the GC standings and take the stage win. However, this pacemaking generosity proved to be a miscalculation since it left Castrillo lurking in the wheels and with plenty of power to distance and hold off a chasing Sivakov and Aleksandr Vlasov when the gradients surged upward inside the final three kilometers.

Back in the group with the top General Classification (GC) contenders, Enric Mas yet again looked to be on career-best climbing form but was unable to distance a struggling Primož Roglič (after the stage, Roglič would be docked 20 seconds for drafting his team car earlier in the stage) or open significant time gaps on his main GC rivals. Despite losing an additional 38 seconds, race leader Ben O’Connor left the stage and went into today’s rest day with his substantial overall intact, setting up an intriguing battle for the GC in the final week through the imposing mountains of Northern Spain and the final day time trial in Madrid.

Check out the blow-by-blow stage breakdown, as well as a few rest day reflections, below:

Stage 15 Top Five
1) Pablo Castrillo (Equipo Kern Pharma) +0
2) Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +12
3) Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates) +31
4) Enric Mas (Movistar) +1’04
5) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +1’04

Time Top Five GC Contenders Gained(+)/Lost(-) On Stage 15:
Enric Mas +0
Richard Carapaz -9
Primož Roglič -20 (received a post-stage 20-second time penalty)
Mikel Landa -23
Ben O’Connor -38

Current GC Top Five
1) Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +0
2) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +1’03
3) Enric Mas (Movistar) +2’23
4) Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +2’44
5) Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) +3’05

KOM Jersey Top Three
1) Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)-46pts
2) Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates)-46pts
3) Pablo Castrillo (Equipo Kern Pharma)-37pts

Points (Green) Jersey Top Three
1) Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)-291pts
2) Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck)-182pts
3) Harold Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan)-95pts

Where The Top Five Have Won/Lost Time So Far

• Stage 1 Time Trial
  Primož Roglič +0
  Enric Mas -22
  Richard Carapaz -23
  Ben O’Connor -35
  Mikel Landa -48

• Stage 4 Summit Finish
  Primož Roglič +0
  Enric Mas -10
  Mikel Landa -10
  Ben O’Connor -1’21
  Richard Carapaz -1’39

• Stage 6 Summit Finish
  Ben O’Connor +0
  Primož Roglič -6’47
  Enric Mas -6’47
  Richard Carapaz -6’47
  Mikel Landa -6’47

• Stage 8 Summit Finish
  Primož Roglič +0
  Enric Mas -4
  Mikel Landa -20
  Richard Carapaz -49
  Ben O’Connor -56

• Stage 9 Mountains
  Richard Carapaz +0
  Ben O’Connor -2’12
  Primož Roglič -2’16
  Enric Mas -2’16
  Mikel Landa -2’16

• Stage 11 Hills
  Primož Roglič +0

  Enric Mas +0
  Mikel Landa +0
  Richard Carapaz -15
  Ben O’Connor -37

• Stage 13 Summit Finish
  Primož Roglič +0
  Mikel Landa -35
  Richard Carapaz -58
  Enric Mas -58
  Ben O’Connor -1’55

• Stage 15 Summit Finish
  Enric Mas +0
  Richard Carapaz -9
  Primož Roglič -20
  Mikel Landa -23
  Ben O’Connor -38

Catch Up Quick (become a premium member to receive full access to daily stage breakdowns):
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6
Stage 7
Stage 8
Stage 9
Stage 10
Stage 11
Stage 12
Stage 13
Stage 14

Stage 15 Race Notebook

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114.1km-to-go: After a vicious fight for the breakaway, an elite group, which includes Pablo Castrillo, winner of Stage 12, gets clear and starts rotating in order to build up an advantage before the day’s first major climb. UAE’s Jay Vine is being incredibly aggressive about pushing the pace.

106.5km: Despite having over two minutes at the start of the climb, the breakaway’s gap is quickly reduced to just a few seconds after the GC group increases the pace. Pavel Sivakov attempts to capitalize on this opportunity by bridging up to the breakaway, which includes his teammate Jay Vine. Roglič personally marks this, which draws Enric Mas and Ben O’Connor clear, which causes an even greater pace increase in the peloton behind.

96km: After the breakaway crests the top of the climb just a few seconds in front of the peloton, Marc Soler jumps from the peloton and begins pushing the pace on the front of the breakaway. This injection of pace is enough to keep the breakaway just ahead of the peloton.

85km-57km: After Soler continues to push the pace, the elastic finally snaps back to the peloton, which is now being led by Soudal-QuickStep at a pace high enough to keep the gap under three minutes. UAE, who has Vine and Sivakov, an outside GC threat, is pushing the pace and taking on most of the responsibility for pacemaking up front.

23.3km: As they approach the final climb, Primož Roglič changes bikes. But, unlike yesterday, it isn’t due to a mechanical issue, but to get a bike with a 1x chainring and mountain-bike-esque gearing on the bike, which will help him cope with the extreme slopes at the end of the stage. Ideally, he will be able to jump into the caravan of team cars to get back into the peloton.

22.4km: However, instead of riding through the team cars, which would allow him to discreetly and legally draft, Roglič just parks himself on the bumper of his Red Bull-Bora team car. This is blatantly against the rules, and while a blind eye may be turned in the event of a flat tire or crash, the race jury won’t tolerate drafting after a performance-based bike change and punishes Roglič with a 20-second time penalty.

18.8km: As the breakaway hits the base of the climb, UAE is still driving the pace on the front and not asking for help from anyone else in the group (who would decline to work due to Sivakov being a theoretical threat to their own GC leaders). The Red Bull car comes up to talk to Aleksandr Vlasov and, likely, tells him not to pull with Sivakov under any circumstance since he can’t be seen pulling a GC rival clear of his own teammate back in the peloton, and it will increase his own chance of a stage win.

9.8km: When Vine is dropped, Sivakov personally takes over the pacemaking without even looking to force the others through on the milder slopes. While Vlasov can’t pull, Castrillo certainly could offer up some pacemaking, but Sivakov either doesn’t see him as a threat due to his larger frame or doesn’t want to risk losing his hard-fought time cushion.

3km: As soon as they turn into the paved goat path to the finish line, Castrillo launches a brutal and (somewhat) nonsensical attack that quickly distances Sivakov and Vlasov. The two others likely don’t change their pace to respond since, on the 13% average gradient to the finish line, going over their threshold serves no purpose since the steep ramps will make the final three kilometers a steady-state threshold competition.

2.1km: When the GC group hits the same point, Florian Lipowitz increases the pace with Roglič on his wheel. They immediately get a gap, with Ben O’Connor the only rider even attempting to respond, before Roglič rides clear a few hundred meters later.

1.2km: As O’Connor is dropped, paying for his foolish increase in pace while following Roglič, Enric Mas emerges from the fog and rides menacingly onto Roglič’s wheel.

1.1km: After reaching Roglič, Mas goes straight to the front and presses the pace in an effort to put Roglič under pressure.

880m: Up front, Castrillo, wrestling with his bike, is caught by Vlasov, but instead of wilting and submitting, he powers clear again and slightly re-opens a gap.

1km (GC Group): Mas’ pace proves too much for Roglič, who falls off the wheel as Mas rides clear into the mist.

Finish: Castrillo crosses the finish line 12 seconds ahead of Vlasov and 31 seconds ahead of Sivakov for yet another shocking stage win.

GC Finish: Coming into the final few meters, Mas’ gap suddenly disappears when Roglič bursts out of the mist to finish on the same time as his rival. Despite the brutal stage and finishing climb, the GC field is closely clustered, with Skjelmose coming in five seconds later and Carapaz nine seconds back, while O’Connor saves his lead after finishing just 38 seconds behind Mas.

Three Rest Day Reflections

1) Pablo Castrillo Has Raised His Potential Ceiling From Coveted Domestique to Potential Future Star at This Vuelta: The performance of their 23-year-old prospect at this Vuelta is far beyond the wildest dreams of the tiny Equipo Kern Pharma team. One stage win is a miracle; two, with one coming against two professional GC contenders on one of the hardest stages of the race, is a sign that they somehow have one of the strongest riders at this Vuelta and, under the correct tutelage, the sky is the limit for the young Spaniard if he can avoid being slotted into a career-long domestique role.

• It was a little surprising that Sivakov and UAE never even asked him to pull through, but if given a free ride to the finish, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, and Castrillo executed perfectly.

  • Perhaps his status as the heaviest rider in the breakaway made Sivakov incorrectly assume that even after sitting in the wheels, Castrillo wouldn’t be a factor on the final steep pitches. But, as we know now, that would have been a fatal misassumption.

    • Outside of not being forced to take a pull, one of his big advantages was being in the initial breakaway. This allowed him to ride the first few climbs at a far slower pace than Vlasov and Sivakov and almost certainly contributed to his having more left in the tank in the final run to the line.

• There have been rumors that Castrillo is headed to Ineos to replace Jonathan Castroviejo as an all-day pacesetting domestique, but there is differing information about whether the deal has been signed.

  • For Castrillo’s sake, let's hope the ink isn’t dry on this deal since he has increased his market value by 5x through these last two weeks, and, at this point, he would be headed to Ineos not as a domestique but as one of their best-performing riders.

    • For example, Ineos doesn’t have a single rider who has won more than a single Grand Tour stage win in the last two seasons. If Castrillo were on Ineos, he would rank 3rd in 2024 race wins, and 6th in UCI points earned this season, ahead of Filippo Ganna, Geraint Thomas, Josh Tarling, and Michał Kwiatkowski.

      • After Matteo Jorgenson's breakout performance this season at Visma-Lease a Bike, there is nothing to suggest that Castrillo couldn’t walk the same path in the right setup.

2) Primož Roglič's Vulnerabilities Emerged After a Tough Day of Racing: After today’s stage, where Roglič looked far off his best after an extremely hard stage where the pace was on from the gun, it is clear that while he is nearly unbeatable on 20-minute ramps when he can unleash his top-tier high-performance engine at the end of fairly easy days, Roglič is far more vulnerable after all-day hard-paced days that blunt this sharp edge. With this in mind, expect Red Bull-Bora to ride an extremely conservative race for the final week and do everything in their power to let the breakaway get up the road to contest the stage wins.

• Since this wasn’t exactly a mystery, it was slightly odd to see Red Bull-Bora play into UAE’s ultra-aggressive tactics by closing down Sivakov’s attack early in the stage. This also explains why Mikel Landa’s Soudal-QuickStep team was so quick to get to the front and ride a hard pace for the final half of the stage.

• Despite appearing to be cracking and not at his best on the final climb, he was able to get even with Mas, partly due to his special gearing for ultra-steep gradients.

  • The only issue is that this change cost Roglič a 20-second time penalty. With the margins looking so tight at this Vuelta, this isn’t insignificant, and it makes you wonder why they attempted the plan when rival teams were driving full gas on the front coming into the climb instead of attempting to do it at a more opportune location or just scrapping the plan altogether.

3) The Top GC Favorites Could Struggle to Peg Ben O’Connor’s GC Lead Back as Easily As Expected In the Third Week: After Castrillo’s stage win, the biggest surprise of the stage was how closely clustered the top GC contenders were and that, after fifteen days of racing, Ben O’Connor is still in the race lead, and has over a minute on Roglič, and more than two on Mas.

• With O’Connor consistently losing time on summit finishes, ceding a total of 4’50 on just four summit finishes through the first two weeks, it may be tempting to write off his chances of holding onto the race lead or even staying on the overall podium through the final week.

  • However, the remaining three summit finishes suit O’Connor far more and Roglič far less than we’ve seen up to this point.

    • Even Mas, who has looked incredible almost every time the road has gone uphill, isn’t taking time on O’Connor as rapidly as one might expect, considering his form.

• Considering that the remaining stages serve up such a brutal climbing test, most would expect that we will see massive GC time gaps. But, as we saw on Sunday and as we’ve seen more and more in recent years, margins can actually tighten as the course becomes more brutal.

  • This suggests that even with tough mountain stages looming on Stages 16, 19, and 20, the final podium places and overall victory and podium will be decided in the Stage 21 time trial.

    • It might seem absurd that this race could come down to 25 kilometers after thousands of vertical meters gained over just a few stages. Still, based on what we’ve seen so far at this race, no single rider possesses a watts per kilo differential big enough to put major time into their GC rivals throughout a single climb.

      • For example, on Sunday's entire 18-kilometer-long final climb, the GC group only pulled back two minutes on the breakaway, which suggests that the superior firepower we’ve seen from the top GC contenders through the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France isn’t present at this race.

• Outside of the battle for the overall win, the KOM competition is shaping up to be an amazing battle, with Wout van Aert, the likely winner of the Green Points Jersey, putting up a legitimate fight to be crowned both the race’s best sprinter and climber.

  • With multiple GC teams now being incentivized to sit back and let the breakaway ride clear, if Van Aert can get up the road early over the next three mountains, he could very well seal the deal.

Stage 16 Preview

With two first-category climbs, a finish atop the iconic HC climb of Lagos de Covadonga, and a total of 4,085 meters/13,480ft of vertical gain, tomorrow’s stage will be an unwelcome return to racing after the peloton’s day off. With a consistently rolling opening 70 kilometers, the breakaway will once again have a great chance to springboard clear to contest the stage.

• When the Vuelta came here in 2021, Primož Roglič attacked on the day’s penultimate climb before riding clear to win atop the climb with a minute+ lead over Enric Mas, which all but sealed his overall victory.

  • However, unlike that day, I expect Roglič to play it safe and look to follow Mas’ wheel while taking a chunk out of O’Connor’s lead by proxy.

  • It will be interesting to see if Mas, who has appeared to be on great climbing form at this race, can finally turn that into significant (non-penalty) time gains on Roglič.

• Prediction: Jay Vine wins the stage from the breakaway, while Roglič finishes with Mas atop Covadonga. The other GC contenders, including O’Connor, finish further behind.