Katusha team members have sacrificed their personal ambitions for the sake of the captain Joaquim Rodriguez, who is fighting to retain the Giro d'Italia pink jersey, teammate Pavel Brutt wrote in his blog on Tuesday.
Rodriguez regained the pink jersey from the Canadian Ryder Hesjedal with a second-place finish in Sunday's 15th stage in the Alps, and is 30 seconds ahead of the Garmin-Barracuda team rider.
Italian racer Ivan Basso, UCI ProTeam, is third in the general classification, 1 minute 22 seconds behind Rodriguez with six stages remaining.
"Now everything is subject to the same goal - no personal ambitions are important," Brutt wrote on the R-Sport website.
"We all work for our captain, 'Purito' Rodriguez, and there is no talk about a break-away for the sake of one's own victories at the stages."
"We are here for Joaquim Rodriguez winning the pink jersey for Katusha."
The Giro d'Italia has become more about strategy than aggression, added Brutt, who is 89th.
"Previously, when I debuted at Giro d'Italia, the race was more open - there were more attacks, no one was afraid," Brutt wrote. "Now, of course, tactical ideas come to the fore."
"All the favorites are going very carefully, looking at each other, trying to find the weak spots, waiting for mistakes."
The final third week of Giro will consist of "the most difficult and insidious stages," Brutt added.
The 29-year-old Brutt, a Katusha racer since 2009, won the starting stage of the 2011 Tour de Romandie.
Rodriguez, 33, joined Katusha in 2010 and the Spaniard won the eighth stage of the Tour de France that year.
In a racing career stretching back to 2001, he has also won the 2007 Spanish road race title, the mountains classification at the 2005 Vuelta a Espana and the La Fleche Wallonne race in Belgium in April 2012.
Monday was a rest day before the race continues Tuesday on the medium mountain, 173-kilometer 16th stage.
