Quite happy with the performance today. I was expecting Fausto to play more the role of teammate in his comeback race, helping Alaphilippe and schmidd, but he was actually the strongest of the team.
On the other hand , that is not so good because it meant it was not the strongest team performance. Quickstep should not be outside the top 25 on such a race. Devenens, Senechal and cavagna disappeared early. Alaphilippe did a meme attack at 80km and then also disappeared and missed all the splits, before coming back at the end.
This meant schmidt has to do a ridiculous work volume to pull back Kung in the latter stages of the race. And it was just fausto and mauri left for the final stages in a big group.
Fausto of course couldn't help himself but to attack multiple times, how you cannot love this guy? But the climbs were more explosive, he is a bit more endurance focus. Also finding his racing legs after 4 months out. So was difficult to make a selection. Vansevent has that more explosive ability and was up there, but he seemed maybe a bit out of his depth with the distance.
I hope the team gets stronger towards the end of season classics. The boys in la vuelta to help remco have been very good, I hope fausto can get the same support.
He is always stronger after some race days, look at his past seasons and how he built form over few weeks of racing. So if there is no more bad luck, I expect good results coming up.
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