Ineos Grenadiers sent four riders into the top 20 in Saturday's Giro d'Italia Budapest time trial, again on Mount Etna, impressing not with individual success but with the strength of the group.

Former Giro d'Italia leader Salvatore Puccio from Sicily and British national champion Ben Swift did much of the work to keep the 14-man break within an acceptable time distance, then Jonathan Narvaez, Pavel Sivakov, Richie Porte set the pace in the group hard on the steepest sections of the climb.

Finally, Richard Kalapas had the most notable run of the Ineos Grenadiers team, exploding in the second half.

However, as the Ecuadorian rider commented after the race, it was the team's performance that impressed on the Etna stage.

"Today was harder than it looked. It was complicated in the beginning because of the heat, and the pace was quite hard in the end," Karapas told Italian television station RAI. When asked about their strategy and whether they expected important riders like former Giro winner Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo Visma) and Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Kazakstan) to fall off the bike.

"What the team did was very important and I am very happy with the way they did it. It was what we wanted as a team."

Ineos Grenadier's move moved Porte up to ninth overall with 2-04, catching new leader Juanpe Lopez (Trek Segafredo).

Asked if his own performance and the loss of Miguel Angel Lopez, Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Kazakstan), and Dumoulin had strengthened his condition as a top favorite, Kalapas dodged the question and simply said, "To win Here I am.

Teammate Castroviejo revealed that their strategy was less about open aggression and more about maintaining a steady pace and seeing how that affected the rest of the peloton.

"I've always seen someone crack on Etna, and I've seen how Dumoulin suffered this time.

The decision to pace up was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing than a premeditated strategy, he said. Richard "felt good on stage and I'm personally happy with the way things went.

"We did what we had to do, and it wasn't really the plan to do so, but Richard was clearly in good shape and confident. Richie Porte told reporters after the finish, "I'm confident that we were able to do it as a team. It's a good sign