The lumpy stage tempted plenty of riders into the day’s breakaway, including Aqua Blue Sport’s Michael Kreder, Julian Alaphilippe (QuickStep Floors), polka-dot jersey Davide Villella (Cannondale-Drapac) and Jetse Bol (Manzana Postobon) – the latter having started the day within five minutes of red jersey Froome.

Villella set about racking up climbing points, but the pace was high in both the bunch and break with more than 43km covered in the first hour.

Team Sky set the pace in the peloton, and the gap was 4’40” over the top of the penultimate climb of the day when the breakaway started to split up.

Marco Haller (Katusha) accelerated on the descent, and Lutsenko went with him – Matej Mohoric (UAE Team Emirates) also followed but was soon dropped.

Four chasers behind them became two – Alexis Gougeard (Ag2r-La Mondiale) and Merhawi Kudus (Dimension Data) – as they hit the final climb, with the peloton by now having eased off and allowed the gap to rapidly go up.

When Moscon peeled off, Froome accelerated and the effort was sufficient to shake off several rivals – Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) and second-placed David de la Cruz (QuickStep Floors) among them.

Van Garderen did track the move but he too was dropped in the final kilometre as Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) led home Froome, Johan Esteban Chaves (Orica-Scott) and Michael Woods (Cannondale-Drapac) with a gap on all their GC rivals.

Adam Yates (Orica-Scott) finished 11 seconds behind the Froome group to stay eighth overall, while brother Simon lost a further ten seconds but is up to ninth.

Vuelta a Espana 2017: stage five – result

1) Alexey Lutsenko (KAZ) – Astana – 4.24.58hrs
2) Merhawi Kudus (ERI) – Dimension Data +42”
3) Marc Soler (ESP) – Movistar +56”
4) Matej Mohoric (SVN) – UAE Team Emirates +1.11
5) Alexis Gougeard (FRA) – Ag2r-La Mondiale +1.24
6) Marco Haller (AUT) – Katusha-Alpecin +1.37
7) Julian Alaphilippe (FRA) – QuickStep Floors +1.40
8) Jetse Bol (NED) – Manzana Postobon +2.04
9) Matvey Mamykun (RUS) – Katusha-Alpecin +2.18
10) Jeremy Maison (FRA) – FDJ +2.31

General classification

1) Chris Froome (GBR) – Team Sky – 18.07.10hrs
2) Tejay van Garderen (USA) – BMC Racing +10”
3) Johan Esteban Chaves (COL) – Orica-Scott +11”
4) Nicolas Roche (IRL) – BMC Racing +13”
5) David de la Cruz (ESP) – QuickStep Floors +23”
6) Vincenzo Nibali (ITA) – Bahrain-Merida +36”
7) Fabio Aru (ITA) – Astana +49”
8) Adam Yates (GBR) – Orica-Scott +50”
9) Simon Yates (GBR) – Orica-Scott +1.09
10) Michael Woods (CAN) – Cannondale-Drapac +1.13