Nobody saw it coming - not even his own team. Jonas Vingegaard's devastating assault on the overall of the Vuelta a España even caught his own squad by surprise, Visma-Lease A Bike management and riders said afterwards, but there was no hiding the delight they felt afterwards at his remarkable triumph, either.
As the heavy rain teemed down on the finish at Valdezcaray, the Visma riders were visibly shivering as they quickly received warm clothes and rain jackets for the 11-kilometre ride down to the team bus. At the same time, though, the hugs and grins they shared at the success of Vingegaard's attack were plain to see as well.
His face grimy with the rain and dirt flung up on the ascent to Valdezcaray, Matteo Jorgenson explained to reporters how the first he'd heard about Vingegaard wanting to attack came when a message cracked through on the radio - "Can somebody launch me?"
The American racer was able to guide Vingegaard into position just where the road steepened and narrowed briefly in dense woodland, allowing the Dane to power off in pursuit of his second Vuelta stage win of 2025 and the third of his career. And as Jorgenson said afterwards, Vingegaard's latest success is the best way possible for the team to head into the Vuelta's first rest day at Pamplona.
"It was completely spur of the moment, Jonas asked on radio, can someone launch me?" Jorgenson explained.
"I said - right now? He said - right now, so I started sprinting, and sent the guy on his way. It's been a great day, we can go into rest day feeling very positive.”
Given all the course was hardly conducive to opening up big gaps, that made the fact Vingegaard could stay 24 seconds ahead of his closest pursuers João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Tom Pidcock (Q36.5). But the margins taken on the rest of the field were even more impressive.
Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) limited his losses to 1:02, but beyond that the bulk of the favourites came home much closer to two minutes back, at 1:42. In a single blow, barring major surprises, the upper end of the Vuelta GC battle has basically come down to a fight between Vingegaard, Almeida and Pidcock, with Vingegaard very much the man to beat.
Even his team were surprised that Vingegaard could achieve all this on a day when setpiece GC battles seemed anything but likely, sports director Grischa Niermann told Eurosport. But he fully concurred with Jorgenson that this was definitely the way the team wanted to end the long, disjointed first week of racing that began nine days ago in Turin and has now ended in the mountains of northern Spain.
"The plan was to be defensive, we saw there was a big chance for break to go again and there was a big fight for it which ended with a small group away," Niermann said.
"Then Lidl-Trek and Q36.5 immediately took control because obviously they wanted to try for the stage."
However, it was Visma that took advantage of the situation, with Vingegaard the person who masterminded the move.
"He told the guys to speed up in the first part where it was steepest, because it was not a climb where later he could really make a difference," Niermann explained.
"But he did it, and he then did a nice time trial to the finish. It was Jonas' initiative because he felt good and of course he has the freedom to tell the others to do that, especially when there's a stage win at stake. It was a very good move."
Niermann explained that once Vingegaard was clear, the way Visma continued to chase behind was to try and keep Sepp Kuss, the 2023 Vuelta winner, in contention.
However, while the American was unable to stay in the main group of favourites, shedding nearly 30 seconds and is now 4:00 down, the Visma chase also ensured that Bahrain Victorious' racer Torsten Træen remained in the lead for another day.
As a result, Visma will not have the responsibility to control the race at least until Larra Belagua on Tuesday, the race's next summit finish. But with Vingegaard now just 37 seconds behind the Norwegian, it could well be that he reaches the last Pyrenean climb of the 2025 with the red back in his possession again.
Regardless of how things play out, Vingegaard and Visma can be more than satisfied with a first week where the conservative approach they had used at Pal and Cerler on stages 6 and 7 suddenly gave way to a much more aggressive strategy - to great effect.
"It's a really nice confidence boost to win today," Niermann concluded to Eurosport. "The hardest days are still to come and the Vuelta is far from over. But we are in a good place."
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