Hello and welcome back to live coverage of the Vuelta a Espana after yesterday's wholly unnecessary rest day. I mean, who do these riders think they are - swanning around Spain from coast to coast, it's what most of us call a holiday. What's more, there's only 32km on the menu today - which is peanuts...

The favourite is on course! The Australian champion Rohan Dennis, who won the opening time trial in Malaga, is the latest rider to roll down the ramp. This next 35 minutes for him will be perfect practice for the world championships next month.

But for now it's Mathias Brandle who is in the hot seat at the finish, the Austrian having set a target time of 40'16" over the 32km. It's 43 second quicker than his nearest challenger, Jelle Wallays.

Kasper Asgreen (Quick-Step Floors) has the best time at the second check: 28'14" for the young Dane, which is two seconds quicker than Brandle.

Meanwhile, there's a big shake up in the intermediate times. Steve Cummings now leads at the first check with 12'54" with Brandle down to fourth at 16 seconds.

The first of our favourites is now on course - the Belgian Victor Campenaerts, who is European champion in the discipline, has just rolled down the ramp. He's yet to get a win this season outside the European and National championships. In fact, he came third in the Giro's opening time trial, the Dauphine's time trial and the opening day time trial here at Le Vuelta.

Other start times to take a note of are: Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Soudal) at 13:59, Jonathan Castroviejo (Team Sky) at 14:07, Rohan Dennis (BMC) at 14:10, Richie Porte (BMC) at 14:32, Nelson Oliviera (Movistar) at 14:37, Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida) at 14:39 and Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) at 15:26.

Just a quick reminder that the riders are currently leaving at one-minute intervals until we get to the top 12 riders - starting with Wilco Kelderman of Sunweb at 15:40 UK time and running through to the red jersey of Yates of Mitchelton-Scott at 16:02 UK time.

Meanwhile, at the second intermediate check after 21.4km it's also Brandle who leads with a time of 29'16" - a huge 1'56" quicker than second-place Max Walscheid of Sunweb. No one has yet finished this course so we can expect the Austrian not only to set the first time, but to set a reference that won't be beaten for a while in all likelihood.

As things stand - and 36 riders have so far got their ITT underway - it's that man Brandle who has the fastest time at the first intermediate check at the 10km point: 13'11" puts him 20 seconds clear of his nearest challenger, Jelle Wallays of Lotto Soudal.

Austria's Matthias Brandle - he of the one-time Hour Record - was the first rider to roll down the ramp. The Trek-Segafredo rider is 166th place out of the remaining 166 riders, more than four hours and twenty minutes down on the leader, Simon Yates.

Here's the official profile of today's 32km individual time trial - and bar the odd lump it's a pretty flat course out there in Cantabria. Ideal for the powerhouse rouleurs like Rohan Dennis, Victor Campenaerts and Jonathan Castroviejo...

Here's a quick reminder of where things stand between the top 10 riders with the four best-placed riders separated by just 43 seconds ahead of the final week of action.

Quick recap alert: before Monday's rest day, Frenchman Thibaut Pinot soared through the mist to win Stage 15 of La Vuelta atop the mythical Lagos de Covadonga climb as Britain's Simon Yates retained the red jersey after finishing third behind Miguel Angel Lopez of Colombia. As all the general classification favourites tore shreds out of each other on the decisive climb, Groupama-FDJ's Pinot took advantage of a momentary ceasefire to kick clear with six kilometres to go and never looked back.