finish, with Team RadioShack's Sérgio Paulinho beating Kiryienka after Kiryienka rode the stage's concluding kilometer in an unstrategic fashion. Rojas took fourth in the sprint finish to stage 11, and fifth on stage 13 (though this sprint was for second place as Alexander Vinokourov won the day with a solo move). After having lost the team award for two days, they took it back after stage 14 when their top three riders finished 14th, 15th, and 16th to Team RadioShack's 11th, 17th, and 22nd, giving Caisse d'Epargne an eight-second lead. The next day, however, they lost the lead for good on a difficult mountain stage where Sánchez also dropped out of the top ten following a distant 30th-place finish, five minutes behind the stage winner and three minutes behind the race's top riders. The team did their best to remain combative, placing two riders in the breakaway in stage 16 to match RadioShack's representation, but the four-minute gap that faced them at that point was too much to overcome. Ultimately, the team left the Tour without any victories. They finished second to RadioShack in the teams classification, by a margin of nine minutes and 15 seconds. Sánchez was their highest-placed individual rider, in 11th place at a deficit of 14 minutes and 21 seconds to Tour champion Contador. Vuelta a España Caisse d'Epargne came to the Vuelta a España with a squad composed of several riders who could conceivably lead it. Unzue stated that he was confident about his team's chances to secure a podium place in the race, and commented that Arroyo, Sánchez, Bruseghin, Plaza, or Urán could all potentially emerge as the squad's leader and protected rider. The squad struggled in the stage 1 team time trial. Despite the presence of Spanish national time trial champion Sánchez, they could manage only 11th place, finishing with seven riders 25 seconds off 's winning time. Plaza and Urán both finished near the front of the race in the hilly stage 4, with Plaza 12 seconds back of stage winner Igor Antón for ninth and Urán 19 back in tenth. This result moved Plaza into ninth overall. The overall standings mostly stayed the same until stage 8, the next mountain stage. While the stage victory went to David Moncoutié, a member of the morning breakaway, Bruseghin, Plaza, and Urán all finished near the top riders in the race. The result moved