Chris Froome has ruled out launching a "crazy" attack at the Vuelta a Espana and will instead rely on Friday’s time trial to rescue his bid for overall victory.
The Team Sky rider is 3min 37sec behind Nairo Quintana in second place overall with one summit finish, a 37km individual time trial and two sprint stages remaining.
Froome lost 2min 43sec to Quintana on stage 15 after being caught out by a surprise breakaway instigated by Alberto Contador but insists he will not resort to similar tactics.
He told cyclingnews.com: "From our side, it's business as usual. Now that we're behind, we're not necessarily going to be trying any crazy sort of tactics to try and make up that time.
"We've got a way of racing and an approach and we'll stick to that for now, and we'll focus on the time trial."
Froome beat Quintana by 2min 5sec in a time trial of almost identical distance during July's Tour de France and is expected to make even greater gains on Friday's mostly flat course.
Quintana is resigned to sustaining heavy losses, but with a 21km summit finish on Alto de Aitana to follow on Saturday, he remains confident of sealing victory.
The Colombian said: "It [the time trial] will be real hand-to-hand fighting. My physical condition is there and I just hope he [Froome] doesn't gain too much time.
"Aitana is much more suited to my characteristics than this one [stage 17's summit finish] and Movistar will put down a nice hard pace beforehand.
"If I don't have a good time trial, then I'll have a good opportunity on Aitana to strike back."
The Vuelta continues on Thursday with a 200.6km 18th stage from Requena to Gandia, which should end in a sprint. Find out more about the route in our race guide and follow the action with our live blog from 1pm BST.
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