Wout van Aert admitted that Remco Evenepoel was simply stronger and faster in the final hour of De Brabantse Pijl, and that he lacked the speed and power to match Evenepoel's determination and long sprint after the climb to Overijse.
Van Aert has still to win a race in 2025 and has struggled to be competitive in the cobbled Classics, finishing fourth at the Tour of Flanders and at Paris-Roubaix. He arguably 'needed' the victory more than Evenepoel but could only hug his fellow Belgian beyond the finish line and accept defeat.
"Of course I had hoped to win and especially in this situation, where we were going to the finish line for a sprint,” Van Aert said in the Dutch post-race interview.
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“But I had nothing left. Remco slowly killed me in the last hour. It was already hard to hang on in the last lap. I was actually already at the limit when we started the sprint."
Van Aert went on the attack after Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Tiesj Benoot set an infernal pace with 55km to race, on the Hertstraat, the first of three painful climbs on the 19.8km finishing circuit.
Evenepoel joined him and they used the Moskesstraat and Holstheide to build their lead to over 30 seconds. Britain's Joe Blackmore (Israel-Premier Tech) managed to join them but was dispatched by an Evenepoel surge on the final climb of the cobbled Hertstraat climb.
"I felt good and helped break the race open. I was shocked that there was such a split so quickly," Van Aert explained.
"For me it would have been better if there were a few more riders, because it was not easy to ride in Remco's wheel.
"I hoped that he would slow after the last climb so that we would have an explosive sprint but Remco kept riding and so it became a fairly long effort."
Van Aert opted to train at altitude in March, missing a stage race and Milan-San Remo. He was second Dwars door Vlaanderen, a combative fourth at the Tour of Flanders, fourth at Paris-Roubaix after an early crash and now second again at De Brabantse Pijl.
They are good results but not by Van Aert's usual high standards. He has only Sunday's Amstel Gold race to win a spring Classic before heading to the Giro d'Italia and then the Tour de France in search of stage victories.
However, Van Aert now has doubts about his sprint, which has won him so much in the past.
"I'm not too disappointed, even if we were aiming for more," he said. "In this situation, I had hoped to beat him in the sprint, but apparently I don't have a sprint anymore.
"I'd like to know the answer to the question why my sprint didn't come out this spring. It's not that we worked differently.
"It's something we have to look at, I have no idea. The only explanation I see today is that I suffered in the last kilometres and was already above the limit when I went into the sprint."
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