Nathan Haas (Dimension Data) took victory on a cobbled uphill sprint on stage 4 of the Vuelta a Burgos – a finish that saw the race lead pass from Dmitriy Gruzdev (Astana) to Gianni Meersman (Etixx-QuickStep).
Positioning was key heading into the narrow final few hundred metres and Haas went on to produce an explosive kick to beat Jempy Drucker (BMC) and Patrick Bevin (Cannondale) to the line in Lerma.
Meersman, well aware he was only three seconds off Gruzdev's lead after the stage 2 team time trial, went for broke and stole the leader's jersey by the finest of margins. Gruzdev and his teammate Michele Scarponi both finished three seconds back but now sit second and third respectively on GC, on the same time as Meersman.
The 145km stage saw a quintet spend the day in the breakaway – Luis Más Bonet (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Amets Txurruca (Orica-BikeExchange), Jacques Janse Van Rensburg (Dimension Data), Marino Kobayashi (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and Jesper Asselman (Roompot-Oranje Peloton) – though they were never allowed to carve out much of an advantage.
Más and Van Rensburg forged on alone from 30km out but sat up and shook hands with 8km to go, whereupon the crosswinds caused havoc and panic in the closing kilometres. It was Katusha piling the pressure on the front of the bunch, and they split the peloton for a while, only for it to come back together for the final couple of kilometres.
The race concludes on Saturday with the queen stage and a summit finish at Lagunas de Neila.