Slovenian Borut Bozic landed the best stage victory of his career by winning the 176.8-km sixth leg of the Tour of Spain on Friday.

The Vacansoleil rider crossed the finish line well clear of American Tyler Farrar (Team Garmin-Slipstream) and former race leader Daniele Bennati of Italy.

The sprinters are dominating the overall standings with German Andre Greipel (Team Columbia-HTC) in first place, six seconds ahead of Belgian Tom Boonen and nine seconds in front of Bennati in third.

"This is a major breakthrough," Bozic told reporters. "The key to winning was being well positioned behind Farrar and Boonen and then accelerating away 250 metres from the line.

"Nobody expected me to start my move so far from the finish and I was able to take the biggest victory of my career."

The 29-year-old Bozic said cycling in Slovenia was a minority sport, which made it tough to carve out his career path.

"I've only ever raced in smaller teams and that means you have to fight harder and win more in order to succeed," he said.

"Today's result though should make a few people sit up and take notice."

Saturday's 30-km time trial in Valencia is likely to see the race favourites strengthen their positions.

"It's not very long and it's pretty flat so there won't be big differences," said Spain's Alejandro Valverde (Team Caisse d'Epargne).

"Afterwards we won't know who'll win overall but it's the first indication who the real contenders are and who's just come along for the ride."

"Of the favourites I'm expecting [Australian] Cadel Evans and [Italian] Ivan Basso to do the best, it's their kind of time trial," Valverde added.

The Tour finishes on Sept. 20 in Madrid.