Richie Porte launched a stinging late attack to bag second on the queen stage at Volta a Catalunya and elevate himself to second place overall. The Tasmanian had the support of his Team Sky team-mates across a mountainous 188.4-kilometre route and proved to be calm under pressure on the summit finish at La Molina.

Clawing back a dangerous move from Alberto Contador, Porte kicked hard inside the final kilometre, crossing the line just three seconds behind stage winner Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing). More importantly Porte picked up bonus seconds and put time into his chief GC rivals, with Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) the next man home five seconds further back.

Despite hard riding from Team Sky the lead reverted to Bart De Clercq (Lotto Soudal), with the stage one escapee holding on by 21 seconds heading into the weekend. Overnight leader Pierre Rolland (Europcar) suffered significant time-loss at the finish.

Vasil Kiryienka was ninth over the line after playing a key role in the closing stages. With 5km to go the Belarusian pushed on up the climb, allowing Porte to sit in the pack. Van Garderen quickly bridged across and narrowly held on at the finish. With 2km remaining it was Contador’s turn to attack, but as the contenders regrouped it was Porte who emerged with the upper hand. After the stage Porte talked TeamSky.com through the day.

"I’m a little bit disappointed to take second on the stage," he admitted. "Credit to Tejay, he attacked at the right moment. I needed to watch Alberto and Rigo a bit at that point but in terms of how the day went the team were fantastic.

"We took it on over the Creueta and to still have four guys over the top with me speaks volumes of the commitment from the boys. When Alberto attacked on the final climb we had Kiry up the road. He got a bit of a gap initially but I never panicked. I was expecting he’d attack and I was happy to ride back to Kiry – who then rode as Kiry does – like a steamroller! I was coming back at Tejay but just came up a little short.

"Today was a big boost in my morale heading into the Giro. Most of the favourites for that race are here and to distance them was great. I feel a bit like I’m flying under the radar at the moment without the attention of guys like Rigo and Alberto. But I’m really feeling ready to take my opportunity. I’m looking forward to May.”

With three stages to go Porte sits in an interesting position, still 21 seconds off the lead but ahead of a number of key rivals.

"The stage on Monday was a bit of a funny one with the organisers not giving us time gaps. I think we’re making the most of a strange situation. We’re all quite happy with how it went today.

"I’ll take it as it comes. We can look at Bart De Clercq and trying to take some seconds off him. But then it’s really tight behind with bonus seconds left on the road. But I think we’ve got guys who can help out if we need to. We saw Wout (Poels) and Nico clean up a few on the first stage. We’ll see, but it’s my goal to be as high on GC as possible."