Sam Bennett made it back-to-back stage wins to cement his place as a dark horse outsider on Sunday at the Vuelta a Espana.

The 31-year-old Irishman claimed victory on Saturday amid a mass sprint in Utrecht, and backed up his points classification credentials with a second Grand Tour stage in as many days in Breda.

As the Vuelta packs up to make the transfer to Spain following its start in the Netherlands, it means Bennett – left out of the Tour de France for a second successive year – leads the points standings.

With such a strong performance to date, the BORA-hansgrohe rider is not ruling out a sustained push for the green jersey, but Bennett acknowledges the riders have barely scratched the surface of this year's race.

"There is a long way to go [and] anything can happen," Bennett said, quoted by Cycling News. "But we want the sprint jersey and we will start to commit more to look at points.

"We have two stages now, so we can make bigger decisions on when to take points and when to leave them. Hopefully we can compete for the green – that would be really nice."

Mads Pedersen nabbed second for the second day in a row, while Briton Dan McLay improved his day-by-day performance from sixth to third.

The race will resume on Tuesday, starting from Vitoria-Gasteiz in the Basque Country, with Edoardo Affini leading a top-six lockout for Jumbo-Visma in the general classification standings.

Affini is tied on the clock with three-time reigning champion Primoz Roglic, plus Sam Oomen, Sepp Kuss, Mike Teunissen and Robert Gesink.

@Sammmy_Be: "A big thank you for the team's commitment. @jonaskoch3 even though he was riding all day, he came back and did another big turn. @ryanmullen9 kept us up there taking so much wind and then @Dannyvanpoppel was massive for us."

@charlylopezph #LaVuelta22 pic.twitter.com/LzCIESNUS3
— La Vuelta (@lavuelta) August 21, 2022

STAGE RESULT

1. Sam Bennett (BORA-Hansgrohe) 4:05:53
2. Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) same time
3. Dan McLay (Arkea-Samsic) same time
4. Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) same time
5. Fabian Lienhard (Groupama-FDJ) same time

CLASSIFICATION STANDINGS

General Classification

1. Edoardo Affini (Jumbo-Visma) 8:20:07
2. Sam Oomen (Jumbo-Visma) same time
3. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) same time

Points Classification

1. Sam Bennett (BORA-hansgrohe) 117
2. Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) 80
3. Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates) 34

King of the Mountains

1. Julius van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost) 3
2. Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) 2
3. Thibault Guernalec (Arkea-Samsic) 1