For years, the road to victory in the cobbled Classics ran through Patrick Lefevere’s teams. Even on the rare afternoons when they were beaten, they always extracted a heavy toll from their rivals. These days, however, it feels as though Soudal-QuickStep have been bypassed entirely on their home patch.
The scene at the bus parking beyond the finish line of E3 Saxo Classic on Friday afternoon told its own story. In victory or defeat, the QuickStep bus was traditionally the focus of the post-mortem at races like this, with reporters and camera crews bustling outside to hear Lefevere’s snap judgement on events in the Flemish Ardennes.
