Brit Chris Froome has slashed Nairo Quintana’s overall lead by two minutes, trailing by one minute and 21 seconds.
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France’s Pierre-Roger Latour won the stage in a time of five hours 19 minutes 41 seconds. “He is a great rival”, Quintana said.
Britain’s Froome lagged behind through the final ascent, but was able to catch up with Quintana and avoid losing more time.
While Froome still has a chance to win the Vuelta, Contador, who is now 3min 43sec behind Quintana, only has a slim hope to win a fourth title.
The triple Tour de France victor started the 37.5km stage seemingly out of the picture at 3min 37sec behind the race leader, Nairo Quintana, but he regained more than 2min to leave himself just 1min 21sec behind the Colombian.
“I think there were two races and it’s a real disappointment for Leo who I thought paced the climb fantastically well and just cut it a little bit short there at the end there”, he added.
“I gave the time trial everything I had”.
Froome continued to press on in the closing half of the route, with the Team Sky rider coming cross the line in a time of 46min 33sec.
Quintana eventually lose 2:16 to Froome, while podium contenders Alberto Contador of Spain and Chaves were 1:57 and 3:13 down respectively. “I am grateful to them”.
Jonathan Castroviejo (Movistar) finished 44 seconds behind Froome and Tobias Ludvigsson (Giant-Alpecin) was third.
Alberto Contador (Tinkoff), who finished nearly two minutes behind Froome, is now third overall while Esteban Chaves (Orica-Bike Exchange) slipped down to fourth after losing over three minutes.
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Team Sky’s Leopold Konig got within six seconds of Frank at the finish, with Dutchman Robert Gesink and Spaniard Pello Bilbao just behind. The 104.8km flat stage takes the riders from Las Rozas on the outskirts of the Spanish capital into a series of laps around the city centre.
