Lidl-Trek may not have won the Tour of Flanders on Sunday, but they came away from the race more motivated than ever, having executed their race plan and delivering a strong Mads Pedersen to second place.
The Dane was beaten only by Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who soloed to victory with an attack on the Kwaremont 18km from the finish, but sticking with the Slovenian for so long and then beating Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in the sprint are two huge boosts for Pedersen and Lidl-Trek.
As well as a career-best result on the day, Pedersen's results puts him – in his team's eyes – as a favourite for Paris-Roubaix on Sunday, even against Pogačar.
"Mads, for me he is the main favourite for Roubaix," Lidl-Trek DS Gregory Rast said after Flanders.
"We're really, really, really optimistic. Of course we have still some stronger riders at home, maybe we need to fix something, but there's still a week to go and we're still racing Scheldeprijs. I think with the team we have here today, we are really, really happy.
"Pogi will also race Paris-Roubaix. Not as many hills but still you saw the last 8ks he did also quite quick… But anyway we are not scared of anyone next week, that's for sure."
For Pedersen himself, getting second in the hilly Flanders also gives him confidence for the largely flat Paris-Roubaix, even if he was hesitant to be too bullish about his chances against debutant Pogačar.
"It is a different race. You don't have climbs and here it's easier for him to make a difference," Pedersen said.
"I have to watch out what I'm saying, maybe he can do it also on the flat cobbles, but let's hope it's just a bit easier to follow him on the flat cobbles."
"It fits me better without that much climbing. So far it has been a pretty good Classics campaign and I would love to finish it off with a victory in Roubaix.
"Of all the Monuments, I believe that it's the one that fits me the best, but again there's pretty strong guys there as well and you'll see the same guys fighting for the win. So nothing is given and we'll keep fighting until next Sunday."
Even if Pogačar's pedigree on the cobbles of Roubaix is relatively unknown, the big thing that Lidl-Trek can count on, especially after Flanders, is the strength of their team and their tactical plan.
On Sunday, whilst Pogačar's UAE and Van der Poel's Alpecin-Deceuninck both had incidents befall them, be it crashes, disorganisation, or missing out on moves, Lidl-Trek played the whole day practically perfectly.
"Very happy, because I think the structure was really clear," Rast said.
"There was only one thing, another guy should be in the front when Daan Hoole was there, but we were super happy we had him there anyway. But we invested quite a lot to nail the run-ins to the important points and I think this was also key today because some teams were not so lucky and they had crashes, so there we could stay out of these troubles.
"We expected Jasper Stuyven to be strong but he was even stronger than we were hoping and it was super good to have him there. Then Daan coming back on the Koppenberg and helping to close the gap there, so it was really a great team performance."
Pedersen had a similar take, and knowing that the team had done everything they could clearly made his runner-up spot much easier to be happy with.
"A really good race. We as a team raced really well. We optimised all our chances to win the race, but in the end Tadej is just so strong and he's just leaving us on the climbs and riding alone," he said. "All in all I'm super happy with the team, how we rode, and also my own performance. We were beaten by a better guy."
Patience pays off for Pedersen
By Pedersen's standards, his approach to the race was comparatively conservative, choosing to follow moves instead of get ahead of himself, but his patience worked and bodes well for how well he will be able to follow in Roubaix.
"I think if I would have attacked with 70ks to go you guys would have given me shit for that. You're always talking about me being too early and so on and this time we believed in me being able to follow them, Tadej and Mathieu, and I think I showed today that I was able to follow quite long," he said.
"Okay, in the end, the way Tadej is riding away, he's doing it alone and no one can follow him, so all in all I'm proud of way we did it and I'm proud of the tactic we had."
Matching and then outsprinting Van der Poel, defending Roubaix champion, on Sunday is also a good sign for the Dane, and hopefully dispels the idea that these Classics are a two-horse race between Van der Poel and Pogačar.
"In the beginning of the day and the whole last week, everybody was thinking we were all going to go for third place, no?," Rast said. "I think we saw that also Mathieu is human, he dropped also, so I think maybe one day we could beat him and that's why I think we are really happy with how the race went."
Even if it doesn't pay off for Pedersen on Sunday, and he remains without his long-chased Monument win, there will be no resentment about having to go up against such a strong generation of rivals.
"I can't do anything else. We have to accept it, [Pogačar] is the best cyclist ever and he's beating us fair and square," he said. "It's not like we are close to beating him, he's one minute ahead of us, so chapeau to this guy. He's doing so much for cycling and he's making the image of cycling crazy big, so hats off."
