Bilbao impressed his home crowd with an uphill sprint in the closing kilometres of the 181.7km stage from Laudio to Amurrio, which featured five climbs.

Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl’s French rider Julian Alaphilippe started the sprint with the group still compact, but Bilbao surprisingly caught up to him and managed to cross the line in 4hrs 35min 24sec.

Russian Aleksandr Vlasov of Bora-Hansgrohe, competing as a neutral, took third while France's David Gaudu of Groupama–FDJ ended the race in fourth. 

Among those to lose time were Spain's Marc Soler of UAE Team Emirates, who rolled in at 33 seconds down, while Britain's Adam Yates of Ineos Grenadiers finished over a minute down.

The general classification maintains the gap between the favourites with Slovenian cyclist Primož Roglič of Team Jumbo–Visma leading the standings, followed by Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl’s Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel at five seconds and Vlasov third on 14. 

Yates is in fourth place overall while Bilbao jumps to fifth place. 

Bilbao won last year’s second place in the Hondarribia stage.

The race is scheduled to continue tomorrow with a 185.6km stage from Vitoria-Gasteiz to Ingeteam Parke Zamudio, which is set to feature four climbs.