Enric Mas fully motivated to attack Vuelta a Espana red jersey: "Every day is important, we have to attack"

A smiling Enric Mas joked after entering the finish line in Cazorla with Primoz Roglic and cutting time in front of the leader Ben O'Connor, proving that today he is, together with the Slovenian, the strongest rider in the Vuelta a España. He was optimistic despite the defeat against the Slovenian on stage 8.

The Movistar Team rider was asked if he had good legs and joked about it: "I have two, like the other days, the legs have been good, jokes aside. Congratulations to Primoz, he played very well".

He has cut 52 seconds (46 on the road and 6 in bonifications) off Ben O'Connor in a third category climb and the Mallorcan is optimistic about cutting the time gap: "Let's hope that from minute to minute at the end of the second week he will be closer". With João Almeida cracking on the day, the Movistar rider has moved up to third place.

He now sits 4:31 minutes behind O'Connor and 52 seconds behind the Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe rider who is second and again the main favuorite to win the GC. He is optimistic about overtaking Primoz Roglic in the overall as well: "Let's hope to catch him, today they had to work from behind".

After losing time another of the big favorites, Joao Almeida, expressed a clear wish for the remainder of the Vuelta, not to have any bad days: "Let's hope we don't have any bad days and if we do we can hide them as well as possible".

On the Granada stage tomorrow, which could be decisive again, he made it clear that we have to continue to be offensive: "Every day is important, we have to attack, tomorrow there are 3 very hard passes and we have to do it. We are all allies because it's a long time. There is a lot of work ahead".