Visma's Brennan-Van Aert tandem is a luxury rather than a problem

A delegation of Belgian journalists set up camp outside the Visma | Lease a Bike bus after stage 5 of the Vuelta a España to Roquetes, waiting patiently as Wout van Aert cooled down on the rollers. Matthew Brennan had produced a thunderous sprint to carry off the day’s spoils, but Van Aert is always the story in that corner of the world. 

Like in Manosque on Sunday, Van Aert had played a key part in helping his young teammate to victory here, but his immediate comments beyond the finish line were limited to a quip about how he had lost his sunglasses somewhere on the run-in.

There were more substantial questions to ask about Van Aert’s role in Brennan’s triumph, not to mention queries about his own aspirations on this Vuelta, but the Belgian preferred to keep his counsel. He chatted amiably with his Visma teammates as they warmed down and then waved apologetically to his waiting countrymen as he clambered aboard to bus. For today at least, their vigil had been in vain.

Then again, the road had already said plenty about the current state of play at Visma. The last time Van Aert raced the Vuelta a España in 2024, he had total freedom of movement. He won sprints in Castelo Branco and Cordoba in the first week, before adding another solo victory at Baiona in week two and then attacking repeatedly in search of points towards his green jersey until a crash forced him out on the road to Lagos da Covadonga.

Two years on, Van Aert’s opportunities to shine at the Vuelta are more limited. He shares top billing in the Visma line-up with the Grand Tour debutant Brennan and, on a finale like this, the Briton’s superior finishing speed makes him the obvious lead option. 

The luxury problem for Visma is that Brennan also possesses a Van Aert-esque ability to get over hills better than most fast men in the peloton, and that trait was in evidence again in Catalan wine country on Wednesday.

The category 3 Alto de Paüs offered a stiff test in the finale, particularly when UAE Team Emirates-XRG decided to turn the screw, but Brennan stayed securely in the front group. Once in the streets of Roquetes, the result was never really in doubt. First Van Aert and then Christophe Laporte dialled up the pace before Brennan cruised to his second win of this Vuelta.

Brennan’s comfort throughout this finale begged an obvious question: with the Briton on this kind of form, will there be any chance for Van Aert to shine on his preferred terrain on this Vuelta?

“There will be opportunities, for sure,” sports director Maarten Wynants insisted outside the Visma bus. “We have divided a bit the sprints for Wout and for Matthew so that they know in advance what to expect and also so that the cohesion is really good. It’s not that everyone puts his finger up if they want to sprint. There is clear hierarchy in that. 

“For the moment, these sprints were for Matthew, but in the future, there will be also some for Wout. That’s also the advantage that we have. We could play also with Christophe if he wanted to sprint.”

Brennan only turned 21 three weeks ago, and he has already amassed 21 victories as a professional. He enjoyed a fast start in 2025, earning selection for Paris-Roubaix and annexing wins at GP Denain, the Volta a Catalunya and the Tour de Pologne, and there has been no sophomore slump in his second year in the peloton.

For a sprinter, finding space to ride Grand Tours on a team so invested in chasing overall victory isn’t a given – witness Olav Kooij’s eventual departure for Decathlon CMA CGM – but Brennan’s talent and range simply cannot be ignored. If this Vuelta selection is an audition for the future, then he is passing it with considerable élan. And, by Wynants’ reckoning, his improvements are visible almost in real time.

“His climbing level is really accelerating because it was a steep 3km climb, but he was also really in control with the top 15 position, I think,” Wynants said. “That impresses me the most because we don’t know exactly where his limit is. We’re letting him discover where his limit is and we enjoy as much as we can.”

When Brennan wheeled his bike into the press room in Roquetes to speak to the written press, he pointed to Mark Cavendish as the sprint idol of his youth, but his own range is different to his illustrious compatriot. His future might eventually lie in the Classics rather than in mass finishes. At this juncture, in any case, Visma are reluctant to pigeonhole him.

“I would say we don’t put a limit on him, because otherwise you put it in like, ‘He’s this and there he has to stay.’ Let him discover…” Wynants said. “Yesterday in Andorra, he wanted to show himself to his teammates to be in the break to pull or something, so yeah: let him discover and then we will find out where the limit is.”

Van Aert is a useful model in that respect. Back in 2019, when he arrived in the WorldTour at the relatively advanced age of 24, Van Aert ignored any preconceived notions about focusing on a particular speciality. In his view, a bike race was a bike race, and he toggled smoothly between sprinting and time trialling, between Classics and climbing, between road and cyclo-cross.

Seven years on, Van Aert’s range may have narrowed, but his ability and nous still carried him to Paris-Roubaix ahead of Tadej Pogacar this spring. At this Vuelta, he shares the stage with Brennan, but the instincts are always the same. Whether as a leader or as a super domestique, the name of the game is finding a way to win. An opportunity will fall Van Aert’s way eventually on this Vuelta. Until then, he clocks on and does his job.

“If there’s a problem, Wout’s a racer: he will understand what he needs to do,” Brennan said. “I don’t need to say anything to Wout and Christophe: it just happens and that’s what you need to be successful in a race like this.”