Fabio Aru rejoined the field at the first summit finish of the 2020 Cycling Calendar at the Vuelta a Burgos.

The UAE Team Emirates climber finished eighth, just over a minute behind stage winner Remco Evenpole (Deceuninck-Quick Step). While he recognizes that there is room for improvement, this is a good result in what is an important year for Aru.

Alou told Cycling News that his contract with UAE team Emirates expires at the end of this season, but that his contract for 2021 is not yet set. In the Picon Blanco, at least that strategy worked.

"To be honest, I would have been a little happier if I had finished in the top five, but in any case, I finished close to the top riders, which is not bad for my first race back," Aru told Cycling News.

"It was a very hard race here in Burgos, with the wind, echelon, heat, etc.

The 2015 Vuelta a España winner and 2017 Tour de France leader recognizes that he is not the only big-name rider looking for important results in a relatively short time this year. To that end, he says, the peloton has manned up and ridden like a man.

"We've come through at a very high level. There is a reverse comma "tension" in the peloton because there is so little time left in the season. So everyone is very eager to get a good result.

Alu himself will not lose track of time, with a very intense race program scheduled for the next few weeks. As co-leader of the UAE Team Emirates in the Tour de France, he has the Mont Ventoux Challenge (August 6), Tour de Ain (August 7-9), Gran Piemonte (August 12), Il Lombardia (August 15), and the national championships (August 23). The following weekend, the team will head to the Tour de France Grande Pearl in Nice.

All of this intensive race preparation is set against the long-term backdrop of where Aru will be racing in 2021. He says, "We haven't talked about contracts at all in the last few months.

That first opportunity will come in the final summit finish of the Vuelta a Burgos. What was missing on Thursday was the pace of the top riders.

"What was missing on Thursday was the pace of the very best riders.

"We'll see what happens tomorrow. I'm wondering myself, but in any case it will have been a productive week in terms of building up my form and condition."