Chris Froome, who rides under a British Licence for Team Sky, leads the Vuelta a España after finishing second in the time trial this afternoon in Salamanca.
HTC-Highroad's Tony Martin as expected was fastest and won the 47km time trial by 59 seconds in a time of 55 mins 54 seconds from second place Chris Froome who moved into the overall lead with Bradley Wiggins finishing third.
"He started very fast," said Sport Director Jan Schaffrath to the HTC Press office. "At 13km at the first time split, he was 40 seconds in front of [Fabian] Cancellara. "The next 20km the roads were narrow and a bit dead but he kept his pace so it was looking good."
"When we got nervous was at when the last 20 riders were on the course. The wind had changed so they had a tail wind at the beginning and the time splits were getting close. But, it turned out that they had a headwind home so overall it was pretty much the same for everyone and he was the strongest on the day."
Nicholas Roche finished 36th, Ian Stannard 94th and Daniel Martin 98th.
Kenyan born Chris Froome leads the race by twelve seconds from Jakob Fuglsang with Bradley Wiggins third at twenty seconds, Nicholas Roche is 17th with Daniel Martin 24th and Ian Stannard 147th.
The riders had a very long transfer after the stage and then a rest day tomorrow before they start back on Wednesday with a mountain stage to Manzaneda ski station.