Buongiorno and welcome to live coverage of stage 10 of the Giro d'Italia - the longest of the race, a huge 244km schlep from Penne to Gualdo Tadino.

Brian Smith shares his thoughts on Esteban Chaves' predicament today...

This is how one respected commentator sees the situation... It's worth adding that Astana and Movistar have joined the party.

The gap is growing again. It's 1'50" now for the main pack so it's looking troublesome once again for Chaves. At this rate the Colombian will drop out of the top 10 today.

The feed zone has actually come a bit later than expected. The riders pick up musettes with the gap at 1'18". Our man Jonathan Harris-Bass is doing a daily food blog during the Giro so this is a good time to share today's recipe - although I'm surprised he didn't opt for penne given the name of the start town...

It's looking better for Chaves, Meintjes, Viviani and the rest of the gruppetto: the gap has dropped to 1'22". It's by no means done and dusted for them - and even if they do get back on, there's still the remaining Cat.4 climb where the race could blow apart again - but it's looking better than it was an hour or so ago.

Bora-Hansgrohe, Bahrain-Merida, UAE Team Emirates and Groupama-FDJ all helping Sky with the pacing on the front as the race passes through the feedzone and approaches a steep but uncategorised climb that takes the race up onto a plateau en route to the second sprint at Sarnano.

Chaves has Sam Bewley, Chris Juul-Jensen and Roman Kreuziger with him in this gruppetto, which is 1'50" down. We're hearing that Spain's Rafal Valls crashed earlier in the stage and has had to withdraw from the race - the first Movistar rider to do so.

There's no sign of a slow-down in the main pack and the gap back to the chasing Chaves-Mientjes gruppetto is still two minutes. Mitchelton-Scott have found support from Quick-Step Floors who have four riders, including Viviani, caught out.

It's worth adding that this main pack contains only about 90 riders - the remaining 80 or so have formed a gruppetto whose pace is being driven by the three Mitchelton-Scott team-mates of Esteban Chaves, the biggest name rider to be caught out on the opening climb of the day. With sprinters Elia Viviani and Sacha Modolo there, they may find some allies in the chase - for a sprint finish cannot be overruled today despite the rolling roads and remaining categorised climb 25km from the finish.

As Tony Martin emerges from a tunnel, he makes a few adjustments to his shoes and then sits up as the pack reabsorbs him. So that's it for the final rider of today's break - although the pace won't let up because of that Chaves-Meintjes group further back.

The road gradually rises now towards the feed zone and an uncategorised climb ahead of the second intermediate sprint. The peloton still trails lone leader Martin by one minute and it's all strung out under the pace-setting by Groupama-FDJ. They're passing through pretty town of Ascoli Piceno, home of the 15th century Italian renaissance painter Carlo Crivelli.

Tony Martin is on the flat roads of the plain now - but it's really miserable weather. He still has one minute and his mouth is agape in true Martin fashion after a brief conversation on the radio. It will be interesting to know what the advice for him is from his Katusha-Alpecin DS. He needs someone with him or this is doomed, surely?

Esteban Chaves, who was dropped on the first climb, has three Mitchelton-Scott team-mates with him and so he's going half-half with team-mate Simon Yates, the race leader. Here's another more optimistic way of looking at the situation...

Krists Neilsen (Israel Cycling Academy) has sat up. The Austrian clearly thinks that, since the break fell apart, he's on a hiding to nothing even in such exalted company as Tony Martin. So, the German powerhouse is out alone now. He'll have to ride more than 150km and he only had one minute to play with. It's a taller order than Conor Dunne.

It's started to rain. We knew it was wet at the finish in Gualdo Tadino but so far it's been dry and quite sunny for the riders. That has just changed. It's worth adding that Martin and Neilands appear to be the only riders from that initial break who are still out ahead - the others must have been pegged back following the intermediate sprint. The gap had come down considerably so that's understandable.

Groupama-FDJ, Sunweb, LottoNL-Jumbo and Sky all have riders on the front of the pack, which trails the leaders by one minute. The Chaves chasing group is another 2'15" back at the latest check.

With the peloton closing in on the break, Tony Martin and Krists Nielands have attacked on the rolling roads to open up a small gap.

No surprises: it was intermediate sprint king Davide Ballerini who won the intermediate sprint at Teramo ahead of Ben King and Koen Bouwman. And here's a photo of Ciccone cresting the first of those two summits earlier on.

Since Chaves was distanced many teams have been active on the front of the peloton to pile on the hurt including Thibaut Pinot's Groupama-FDJ, Fabio Aru's UAE Team Emirates and most notably Chris Froome's Team Sky.

We're awaiting the result of the first intermediate sprint at Teramo but, to be fair, no one is really too bothered about that. What's piqued our interest is that deficit for Chaves - what's happened to the Colombian? Is he ill? Did he crash? Did he eat something dodgy on the rest day? And is he still smiling?

Big news: we have a time split on Chaves and he's riding in a group that's 2'10" down on the peloton and 3'30" down on the 12 leaders.