Dron won the special-category climb, with the lead over the peloton at around ten minutes. The breakaway then broke up, with De Gendt and Erviti continuing together at the front of the race; on the penultimate climb, they had a seven-minute advantage on the peloton. Weening made contact with them again just before the summit of the climb and they collaborated on the descent. Coming towards the base of the final climb, Wout Poels (Sky) attacked from the peloton and linked up with Swift; despite their work, they were unable to build a significant advantage as Contador chased them. On the final climb, Erviti attacked, but he was soon passed by Weening, who built up a minute's lead. Poels was eventually caught with remaining, while De Gendt had caught up with Weening again. There were several attacks in the peloton, from Mikel Nieve (Sky), Robert Gesink () and Miguel Ángel López (Astana), but the first strong attack came from van Garderen. Contador eventually chased him, with Porte, Quintana and Martin following, but Martin was soon dropped. Van Garderen was caught by Contador's group and Contador and Quintana then dropped the BMC riders. Meanwhile, De Gendt passed Weening and continued solo to take the stage win. Quintana attacked in the final and finished second, 15 seconds ahead of Porte and Contador. Quintana therefore took over the race lead, with Contador eight seconds behind in second. After the stage, Contador blamed his time loss to Quintana on the effort he had put into chasing down attacks in the final kilometres, in particular that of van Garderen. Porte also praised van Garderen's efforts and was pleased with their collaboration. Froome, meanwhile, lost 37 seconds to Quintana and his "directeur sportif", Nicolas Portal, said that he "didn't have the legs" to follow the leaders' attacks.  25 March, Rialp to Valls,   After two consecutive summit finishes, the fifth stage was simpler, with a stage with just two categorised climbs. The route took the riders south from Rialp to Valls. The first of the stage was fairly flat, before the second-category Port d'Àger climb. The roads continued to be flat until the final of the stage. First there was an uncategorised climb with a summit around before the finish.