Belgium’s Wout van Aert surged clear of Valentin Paret-Peintre in a sprint to the line to win stage 13 of the Vuelta a Espana.

The duo were part of a huge breakaway that at one point contained 43 riders on the 192.8km route from Almunecar to Loja.

However, they escaped with 3.7km remaining to contest the finish unchallenged, where Van Aert’s greater power told.

Britain’s Matthew Brennan, who has already won three stages, crossed in third behind his Visma-Lease a Bike team-mate and Paret-Peintre.

Overall race leader Enric Mas arrived three minutes later along with all the other main general classification favourites to retain an advantage of one minute and 45 seconds over Primoz Roglic.

“I had it a little bit in my mind [to attack when I did],” Van Aert said. “I saw the profile and I knew there was this last kicker coming into the village.

“This distance [from the finish], a lot of the time, is when people start to think about the sprint.

“If you’re able to open up a gap, then they [the remaining riders in the breakaway] don’t want to close it for each other anymore. It was close enough to the finish to be worth it.”

The peloton faces a difficult day in the mountains on Saturday as the race travels 154.5km from Jaen to La Pandera.

Meanwhile, Dutch sprinter Olav Kooij won a chaotic sprint finish on stage three of the Tour of Britain.

Kooij pipped Tim Merlier at the end of the 181.1km stage that started in Hull and concluded in Beverley, to claim his eighth stage victory at the race, leaving him just two wins short of the record held by Mark Cavendish, who has 10 on his palmares.

Britain’s Lewis Askey finished with the same time in 17th place and hold on to his place at the top of the GC with Belgian Tim Wellens 12 seconds back in second.