David de la Cruz got Team Ineos back on the front foot after a terrible start to the Vuelta a Espaņa on Thursday, but he fell short of taking the victory or overall lead on stage 6, his struggles on the final climb hardly inspiring him with confidence despite his rise up the general classification. The Spaniard started the day 23rd overall, 4:35 down on leader Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) but the best-placed of Team Ineos, whose leaders Wout Poels and Tao Geoghegan Hart lost more than 10 minutes as early as stage 2. After Poels had gone on the attack on the two early climbs, de la Cruz made it into an 11-rider breakaway that formed after 50km on the 199km road from Mora de Rubielos to Ares del Maestrat. The break went all the way, opening such a margin that the 30-year-old started the final climb - the category-3 Puerto de Ares - as the virtual leader.ADVERTISEMENT However, also present was Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-Merida), who was just eight seconds behind him at the start of the day. When the Belgian attacked strongly 4km from the top, passing the earlier attackers and riding to the line with eventual winner Jesus Herrada (Cofidis), de la Cruz lost ground and finished in ninth place, nearly a minute down. `It was a really hard day. Honestly, I was thinking about the stage victory, but in the end I didn`t have the legs to beat these guys who today were stronger than me,` de la Cruz said at the finish. `What can I say? I just gave my best but, as you can see, it was not enough. You have to keep trying and let`s hope a good result is coming.`
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