A few months after his stage win in the Giro, Fabio Aru took another big victory when he dropped all the grand tour stars in stage 11 of the Vuelta a Espana. However, the Italian remains cautious when asked to assess his chances as he has never done to grand tours in the same year.

"Gesink attacked first on the climb, but very early," Fabio Aru said when asked to describe his winning move on stage 11 of the Vuelta a Espana. "At 2k Contador closed my first attack down immediately. I waited again and went full gas the second time."

Aru attacked the leaders in the final kilometres of a mountain stage and broke away solo with a large gap to win his first career Vuelta a España stage - the Italian rider won a similar mountain stage at the Giro d'Italia in May.

With teammates all around protecting him throughout the day, a confident Aru arrived at the base of the final climb with fresh legs and an easy task of following the peloton as it decreased in size and increased in speed.

Following a pre-race plan to wait for the final 2k - just when the gradient was steepest - Aru made first one great attack to shock the front group, then a second, decisive launch off the counterattacks to fly solo up the road.

Aru won Wednesday's stage by six seconds, and now sits firmly in seventh on General Classification with many more days of competition ahead.

"Incredible! I’m extremely happy to win here," he said. "I found myself really well after the Giro. This victory is dedicated to my team, to my family, to all the people to have helped me reach this level. I prepared for this Vuelta very well.

"It’s been a very competitive stage from the start. When I manage to ride away with 2km to go, I couldn’t believe it. I was going away from those great champions! It’s important for me to win here but I’m still in a learning process.

"I tried to stay at the contact of those riders until the last few kilometers after I saved energy during the whole stage and I attacked them when I felt it was the right time. Tiralongo is a very important person for me. We’ve been training together in the mountains for the Vuelta bringing our families to Sestrières. I listen to his advice carefully.

"It’s incredible. I’m surprised that I can win even though I knew I came here with a good preparation. The tests I underwent evidenced it. As soon as the Giro was over, I put that performance behind me and we’ve planned the second part of the season with the team.

"My desire to perform is always big. I’ll try to bring home the best possible result. Let’s see day after day. There are another ten stages and some of them are very hard. I’ve never done two Grand Tours the same year so I have no idea of what I’m able to do by the end of the Vuelta."