At the top of the Valico di Monte Scuro on Wednesday afternoon, it was hard to tell where the mountain ended and the sky began, as low clouds merged with the tree canopy and shrouded the Giro d'Italia in darkness.

Somewhere in that fog, Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) was riding behind the Maria Rosa group. For a moment, his Giro challenge looked as vague as the conditions, but he chased the other side and finished stage 5 safely alongside the overall contenders.

After Monday's setback on Mount Etna, Yates' prospects for the Maglia Rosa are still distinctly hazy. At the end of stage 6, he is in 21st place, 3:52 behind Joan Almeida (Deceuninck-Quick Step), but his Mitchelton-Scott team insists that there are still more than 2,600 km and many more passes to go before the final overall win on October 25! ...

"It was obviously not planned for Simon to lose time on the Etna stage, but I think we managed to calm him down and limit the time lost there," said Jack Haig, who finished 2:46 behind the team leader on stage 6 on Thursday. Castrovillari, told Cycling News.

"Ultimately, this year's Giro is very heavy at the back in terms of climbing stages and stage lengths. The weather will also be very unpredictable this year's Giro. He lost some time, but I don't think it will be that big of a time in the end."

Haig's words echo those of Sportif director Matt White shortly after Yates' disappointment in Etna. While White's comments initially seemed fanciful given Yates's travails at the volcano, the difference is not insurmountable. Yates is nearly four minutes ahead of the inexperienced Almeida, but less than three minutes ahead of Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo) and Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo Visma).

In a race where there is no dominant team and many variables will cascade into the candidates' paths between now and Milan, Yates is not out of contention yet, but of course it all depends on whether his struggles in Etna were merely temporary.

"Exactly, we can only hope that today was a one-off and that Simon will get better," said Hague. 'If Simon is in the same condition as Tirreno [Adriatico], anything is possible. This is not a typical Grand Tour where one important team is really strong and in control of the race. I think the race will be more open and the time difference between the top 10 will be bigger than in this year's Tour de France."

Yates arrived in the Giro coming off a brilliant overall win in Tirreno-Adriatico, backed by the strongest collective in the race, and Mitchelton Scott set the pace at the front of the peloton on the approach to Etna on Monday.

For Yates, who will be looking to gain a few minutes back in the overall standings this time around, his team will aim to be a disruptive force rather than a controlling one. This is clearly different from Mitchelton-Scott's strategy in 2018, when Yates led the race for two weeks and Hague played a key role in holding back the Maglia Rosa group for the leader.

"This year," Hague said, "we'll have a little more opportunity to get into breakaways because we lost a little bit of time on GC, and Simon is a little bit further back, so it's a more open race. ''And we'll see,'' Hague said. 'It might lead to waiting for the right opportunity and trying to take advantage of it when it comes.'

Mitchelton-Scott suffered a major blow on Thursday when Brent Bookwalter was forced to abandon the race due to a suspected broken lumbar vertebrae from a violent crash on stage 2.

"I fell hard and landed on my back and the radio hit my back.

The American's experience will be lost in the weeks ahead, but before leaving the race, he expressed confidence that the conditions that led Yates to victory in Tirreno-Adriatico had not simply diminished in two weeks.

"The form is there. He is healthy and doing all the right things. He said, "It's been a strange year. We already know this has been a strange year. In different races, you have one weird day and one really good day.

"Traditionally in the Grand Tours -- maybe not so much in the Giro, but in the Tour de France -- if you are even a few minutes behind, you are out of contention for the win. But here, I think there is a big time gap."

Two years ago, Yates fell victim to such an upset just two days from the finish, losing Maria Rosa in a deranged afternoon race that defied all logic in the Colle delle Finestre. Yates's challenge last year never recovered from a subdued first week in the San Marino Time Trial.

This time around, Yates hopes to bounce back as the race progresses, but there are important preliminaries ahead for the Gruppo this weekend, with a summit finish in Roccaraso on Sunday.

"I'm feeling better," he said. I'm hoping that in the next few days and weeks I can reach the level I expect."