QS has a pretty good support team for this particular Vuelta. Having Alaf to lead that final cat 3 and descent safely was a great move -- he dropped a bunch of riders. Not sure what Ilan can really do but with Remco's shape it didn't matter today.
As I noted in another thread, at first I was surprised at what I thought was the poor form from a bunch of decent riders -- Hindley, Higueta, Carapaz, Sivakov, Yates, O'Connor, Almeida etc -- but it really does seem that Remco is just on another level right now. "Riding yourself into shape" isn't an option when you're just struggling to limit losses....
All in all not a particularly interesting stage without Kuss

...if he was healthy he'd have stayed with Remco, I think...