Spanish Grand Tour hope Juan Ayuso climbed to a convincing mountaintop win on stage six of the Tirreno-Adriatico to take a stranglehold on the overall standings on the penultimate day.
Briton Tom Pidcock was second on the race's queen stage, 13sec adrift of Ayuso with Jai Hindley in third, Mikel Landa coming in for fourth and Antonio Tiberi was fifth.
The 22-year-old Ayuso is likely now to lead Team UAE's bid to retain the Giro d'Italia in May a year after the team's major star Tadej Pogacar romped to the 2024 title.
Italian Filippo Ganna started Saturday in the overall lead after his opening day time trial triumph gave him a 23sec lead over Ayuso, the defending champion.
But if Ganna holds a slight edge on Ayuso in the individual effort, Ayuso showed his future potential with his acceleration on the 7.7 per cent gradient final climb to deserve the overall lead.
"It went really well. I went for it in the last kilometre. It was tough but I closed it out," said Ayuso.
Ayuso leads Italian rider Tiberi of Bahrain Victorious by 37sec, with Ganna of Ineos 38sec while Canada's Derek Gee of Israel-Premier Tech is fourth at 42sec and Aussie Hindley of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe fifth at 53sec.
Pidcock's near miss Saturday did, however, lift him to sixth.
The final run will be a sprint finish on the Adriatic coast at San Benedetto del Tronto with a single climb halfway through the 147km run.