Giro d'Italia leader Egan Bernal extended his advantage with a masterful ride as he finished 11th in the 11th stage today ©Getty Images

Switzerland’s 21-year-old Mauro Schmid sprinted home to win the eleventh stage of the Giro d’Italia, but the story of the day was a strategic ride from Team Ineos, whose Colombian rider Egan Bernal extended his lead in the general classification from 14 seconds to 45sec.

Schmid secured his first Grand Tour win on the 162 kilometres (101 miles) hilly run from Perugia to Montalcino after breaking away from the peloton with Alessandro Covi and beating the Italian, riding for UAE Team Emirates, to the line by a single second, finishing in 4hr 01min 55sec.

Belgium’s Harm Vanhoucke, riding for Lotto-Soudal, was third, 26 seconds adrift of the winner, with fellow countryman Dries De Bondt, of Alpecin-Fenix, at 41sec.

Bernal had remained at the head of the main peloton for the main part of the stage over Tuscan gravel roads, and finished strongly to take 11th place.

Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel, riding for Deceuninck-Quick Step, who had begun the day in second place overall, dropped away from the main group and also dropped to seventh in the general classification, 2min 22sec behind Bernal, whose time of 42hr 35min 21sec puts him 45sec ahead of Russia’s Aleksandr Vlasov, of Astana-Premier Tech.

Damiano Caruso of Italy, representing Bahrain Victorious, is third at 1:12, ahead of two British riders, Hugh Carthy of EF Education-Nippo and Simon Yates of Team BikeExchange, who are at 1:17 and 1:22 respectively.

Tomorrow’s stage 12 is a 212km ride from Siena to Bagno di Romagna.