Visma-Lease a Bike's Classics-style 2025 Tour de France squad once again made their presence felt in stage 4's hectic finale, but despite squeezing the peloton down to a minimum, the 'Killer Bees' once again found that stage winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was immune to their stings.
In a viciously technical finale, Visma began raising their pace with some 10 kilometres to go. Whilst expectations had perhaps been that Wout van Aert might be more of a factor in such testing, punchy terrain, instead, 2025 new signing Victor Campenaerts arguably played the most crucial team role.
The 2024 Tour stage winner simultaneously guided the front group through the switchback streets of Rouen, and almost single-handedly reduced those capable of holding his wheel to just 25 riders in the process.
Teammate Matteo Jorgenson then made a couple of short digs, which were quickly crushed by UAE's João Almeida, only for Pogačar to deliver a searing acceleration on the Rampe Saint-Hilaire. Vingegaard was dropped, regained contact, and then a little knot of riders reached the two Tour favourites later on, meaning the Dane had to settle for third at the end of the day.
That said, just as Visma-Lease a Bike had made much of the running in the crosswinds on Saturday's opening stage, on Tuesday in Normandy, the yellow-and-black team were collectively very much on top of their game again. And with more technical, punchy finales to come on Thursday and Friday, their determination to give Pogačar a run for their money is clear.
"It was a circuit designed for racing, we were joking a bit with Wout before the race that when you looked on the map, it looked like a cyclo-cross parcours," Campenaerts told Eurosport afterwards.
"Going into the technical downhills and final climb, we knew it would be nice to lead and we did so, for sure that put some pressure on the other guys, but Tadej never gets surprised."
The plan, he said, was to be ahead on the crucial sections because that way the ultra-complex technical finale would all but automatically ensure gaps opened. As Campenaerts pointed out, invariably in such high-speed, technical scenarios, whilst the first five in the line would be able to handle changes of pace and direction, further back riders would find themselves facing an incessant series of punishing sprints just to stay in contact.
"We executed the plan that we wanted to, but this parcours is maybe more suited to Tadej than Jonas, but that doesn't mean we give him a free ticket."
"We tried to put pressure on him, we did, he won, Jonas was third, so in the end that's OK for us."
Stage 5 time trial
The scenario in the Tour de France changes dramatically on Wednesday, with a 33-kilometre individual time trial testing the GC favourites in a very different way, and will act as the next phase of what is increasingly looking like a GC duel between Vingegaard and Pogačar.
There is also the immediate precedent of the Critérium du Dauphiné time trial to bear in mind, too.
Vingegaard didn't win, but his second place enabled him to gain 29 seconds on Pogačar, whilst Jorgenson, currently fourth overall in the Tour, also managed to gap the UAE leader by 11 seconds.
A former European and National Time Trial Champion and Hour Record holder, Campenaerts' interest in how that plays out is partly as Vingegaard's teammate but also as an expert in his own right in that field.
"Jonas is going so well on the time trial bike, and at altitude, he spent a lot of hours on it," Campenarts told Eurosport, "And chapeau to that."
"I would say this parcours is perhaps more suitable to somebody with higher absolute Watts, which is Tadej, because he is heavier. So he has to produce higher Watts, and on a super-flat course like this, you would say it's in his favour. But, I will be very curious to see."
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