Oscar Onley battled hard to limit his losses on stage 12 of the Vuelta a Espana following a crash earlier in the stage.
The Netcompany INEOS rider set his own tempo up the final climb of Calar Alto after becoming distanced from his immediate GC contenders.
Despite that the Scot was able to dig deep and finish 12th on the stage as a breakaway contested the top positions.
Onley now sits fifth overall, 4:29 back on continued leader Enric Mas (Movistar), whilst retaining his white Young Rider's jersey.
Jack Haig and Axel Laurance formed part of a large 30-man break which went on to contest the stage win. In the end it was Jakob Omrzel (Bahrain Victorious) who pulled off an impressive solo victory, elevating himself to sixth overall.
Earlier, with 131km to go, Onley was among a handful of riders who slid out on a roundabout following the opening climb.
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Oscar Onley - "For now I’m ok, I just slid out on a roundabout.
"It was pretty hot today, I had to ride my own pace on the last climb. Jack was really good when I caught him on the last climb and he really saved me a lot of energy, so a big thanks to him."
Thursday also saw stage two of the Tour of Britain, which played out in a sprint finish into Skegness. A tough day saw Filippo Ganna lose time following a bike change at an inopportune moment with 62km to go as the race began to split.
The team worked hard with a collective chase effort but were unable to shut the gap to the lead group in tricky conditions. Sam Welsford led the team home in the sprint just outside the top 10. Ganna now sits 10th overall, 1:53 back on leader Lewis Askey (NSN Cycling Team).