Miguel Ángel López reclaimed the leader’s red jersey in the Vuelta a España as Alejandro Valverde won stage seven on a summit finish at Mas de la Costa to underline his own challenge.

On another punishing day of racing, world road race champion Valverde emerged from an elite group to edge out Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) while López finished third ahead of Valverde’s Movistar teammate, Nairo Quintana.

Bahrain-Merida’s Dylan Teuns, who took the race lead following Nicolas Roche’s crash on Thursday, cracked inside the final 30km of Friday’s brutal stage and eventually lost nearly 10 minutes to his rivals.

That allowed Astana’s López to assume the overall lead for the third time inside the first week. The Colombian now has a six-second advantage over Roglic in the general classification, and is 16 seconds ahead of third-placed Valverde.

The 183km stage from Onda was settled on the steep ramps of the final climb: 4km of roughly-surfaced road with gradients that averaged 12% but frequently topped 20%.

Philippe Gilbert and Sergio Henao, the last two survivors of an early breakaway, were caught as soon as the road ramped up, with the elite group of Valverde, Quintana, Roglic and López moving clear.

Valverde loitered at the back of the select group as Quintana looked to disrupt the rhythms of the others, and the rainbow jersey wearer only emerged on the 17% gradients of the final few hundred metres to take victory.

Saturday’s eighth stage is a 166.9km trip from Valls to Igualada, which is expected to end in a bunch sprint.