Nacer Bouhanni of Cofidis took the victory and the race lead on the second stage of the 62nd Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol 2016 in Spain.
A 186.3km stage from Palomares del Rio to Cordoba with Tinkoff's Daniele Benatti in the lead saw 159 riders start and Reinier Honing of Roompot, Ruben Pols of TeamTVLB, Torres of Burgos BH and Aitor González of the Murias Team out front.
They had a lead of 3.30 after fifty one kilometres before Torres took the first climb of the day.
With ninety kilometres remaining, their lead stood at 3.05 and 2.51 with 48kms left on what was a chilly day with temperatures around the twelve degrees mark.
Through Villarubia with a lead of 1.25 but as the rain came down, Team Sky took to the front of the peloton and brought the gap down to under a minute.
On to the Alto de Trassierra climb and the break was caught and Dimension Data's Kosta Siutsou took the opportunity to get away and take a lead of 21 seconds with 17.8kms left.
He was brought back and Philippe Gilbert of BMC who took to the front in a group of nineteen riders which included Ben Swift of Team Sky.
The group extended to forty riders and they battled it into the final kilometre and in a bunch sprint up came Nacer Bouhanni of Cofdisi to take the win in 4.39.33 ahead of Fabio Feline and Ben Swift, followed Laporte and Kreider.
Nacer Bouhanni now leads the race overall.