[10] The breakaway's advantage had been cut to around three and a half minutes as the main field moved over the climb at Coll Formic, but the quintet managed to put more time into the pack, after their pace relented slightly.

[17] Noting the peloton's inability to recapture the entire breakaway on the opening stage, GreenEDGE established themselves on the front of the pack; protecting their overall leader Michael Albasini from losing any potential time on the road.

Movistar Team's Alejandro Valverde took a tumble as the race was passing through; his front wheel hit a discarded drinks bottle, and crashed into a kerb.

[16][17] This allowed for the Alt dels Angels, a first-category climb 14 km (8.7 mi) from the end,[22] to take a greater presence in the stage's running, increasing the chances of riders going off the front to attack.

[30][31] The stage's primary breakaway commenced forming at the 17 km (10.6 mi) mark, on the ascent of the first climb, the first-category Alt de Coubet.

The break quickly extended their gap to the main field, reaching a maximum of nigh on eleven minutes at the 123.5 km (76.7 mi) point of the stage.

[32] The inclement weather failed to relent, forcing organisers to deploy snow-clearing machinery at the finish, in a bid to run the stage at its full length.

[37] The order of riders placed 3rd to 7th were subsequently revised on the UCI's official results service, but as of May 2012 remained unchanged on the event organisers' site.

[45] The trio were caught by a gruppetto of around 25 riders in the proximity of the climb of the Coll de Paumeres; Zingle on the ascent, and Rosendo and Sánchez on the descent.

[46][47] Michael Albasini once again retained the leader's jersey; continuing to hold his 92-second lead over fellow Swiss rider Steve Morabito of BMC Racing Team,[47] who moved up from fourth after Ryder Hesjedal of Garmin–Barracuda and Ag2r–La Mondiale's Mikaël Cherel both lost time.

[50] At the intermediate sprint, coming after 108 km (67.1 mi) in Santa Coloma de Queralt, the breakaway held a lead of seven-and-a-half minutes over the peloton.

[53] Just like the previous day's stage, mini-attacks set the course for the early running; at least four separate groups attacked inside the first 40 km (24.9 mi) of the parcours.

Garmin–Barracuda's Ryder Hesjedal was among those chasing after Moncoutié and Pineau, in the hope of bringing himself back into overall contention, having been as high as second in the overall classification earlier in the week.

The trio held an advantage of three minutes after 72 km (44.7 mi),[55] when the race took a temporary halt after a police motorcycle collided with a car head-on, on the stage route.

[56][57] Once the accident was cleared, the breakaway trio were allowed to leave with their original three-minute advantage, after the peloton had negated their gap through the time that they had been stopped.

Their attacking impetus had been stunted however, as they were losing time quickly and were eventually caught prior to the stage's final climb of the day, the Alt de la Conresa.

[55] Pineau's team-mate Jussi Veikkanen was next to try an attack off the front of the peloton, and despite pressure from the Caja Rural team, he managed to get clear and was later joined by Stage 3 winner Janez Brajkovič of Astana, Cofidis rider Romain Zingle and Project 1t4i's Yann Huguet.

[55] The lead quartet pushed on through the final intermediate sprint point in Mollet del Vallès, and managed to hold their advantage onto the Alt de la Conresa.

Huguet could not live with the pace that was being set by Brajkovič, but his efforts were ultimately in vain as the main field quickly caught up to them prior to the summit of the climb.

Ag2r–La Mondiale's Romain Bardet and Francis Mourey, the third FDJ–BigMat rider to make an attempt to get clear, both launched attacks prior to the final finishing circuit in Badalona.

Javier Ramírez was the first to summit the Alt d'Ullastrell for Andalucía,[63] while at the second climb, it was Team Katusha's Petr Ignatenko that took the honours on the Castellbisbal.

Four other attacks occurred on the run-in to Barcelona, with Rabobank's Luis León Sánchez getting the most leeway from the group; holding an advantage of around a minute with 15 km (9.3 mi) to go, but could not survive off the front.

[62] Ultimately, it came down to another sprint finish, with in-form Julien Simon taking his second win for Saur–Sojasun in three days, ahead of Francesco Gavazzi of Astana and Lampre–ISD's Damiano Cunego.