Despite not finishing in the first group, Juan Pedro López (Trek-Segafredo) donned the maglia rosa for another day with a slim 12 second lead on João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) heading into the second rest day.
López managed to stay in touch with the leaders until 8 kilometres to go, when he was forced to drop back after a touch of wheels to avoid crashing.
One of the biggest movers of the day was 2019 Giro winner Richard Carapaz (INEOS Grenadiers) who led an attack with 4.5 kilometres to go with Mikel Landa (Bahrain-Victorious) and Romain Bardet (Team DSM) in tow.
The trio were joined by João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Jai Hindley (Bora–Hansgrohe), and Domenico Pozzovivo (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux).
Bardet, Carapaz, Landa and Almeida finished together just behind stage winner Hindley, and all four moved into the top five behind López.
Bardet now sits third at 14 seconds back, with Carapaz a second behind him in fourth and Aussie Hindley fifth, 20 seconds off the top spot.
Almeida's ride paid off in spades, the Portugese jumping from 8th to 2nd in a single day with a great chance to overtake Lopez in the second half of the race.
Landa also saw reward on the day, moving into 7th overall.
Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) became one of the earliest casualties of the Blockhaus climb, dropped with 12 kilometres to the finish and down to 22nd overall.
Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) was the next to go soon after, the stage 2 winner not able to withstand the brutal climbing while nursing a knee injury sustained in stage 4.
With the gradient upping to 9.4 percent in the final 10 kilometres, Wilco Kelderman (BORA-Hansgrohe) was the next to succumb on the slopes and plummeted to 24th overall.
The GC battle is now a whole new ballgame as the halfway point of the race approaches, and will make for exciting viewing for each and every stage to come.
The Giro d’Italia is on a rest day, but will return with Stage 10 on Tuesday evening, a 196km stage with a hilly finale from Pescara to Jesi. Watch on Tuesday from 8.10pm AEST on SBS On Demand, with the SBS broadcast starting at 11.00pm AEST. WA viewers can tune in from 9pm AWST on SBS VICELAND.
