Visma-Lease a Bike team boss Grischa Niermann called for better positioning and a spot of bad weather to help the team secure the win they want, after heading home from Opening Weekend empty-handed.
The Dutch team came close at Sunday's Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, with the team's sprinter Olav Kooij coming a close second behind victor Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix), but as sports director Niermann said afterwards, the team "has to be better".
"The last three years we had a lot of success here," he said. "Olav came second, which is a really good result for him, for us. But we came here to win a race, ideally two. That didn't work out so obviously we're a bit disappointed but the most important appointments are coming."
The race came down to a big bunch sprint after a day characterised by an early break that lasted almost the entire day, despite at least one concerted attempt by Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) to bridge across.
But the escapees were caught with around 10km to go, setting up a fast finish over what was a flat finale.
Van Aert said the number of team's riding for sprinters meant it was always going to be hard to make the break. "We tried but it didn't work out," he said. "It's good to have these hard races in the legs, but that wasn't the main objective of this weekend.
As for the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider Roger Adrià, who had clung tenaciously to Van Aert's back wheel as the Belgian tried to bridge to the escapees, he said: "I felt it was impossible to close the gap myself – I would have preferred he had tried to work with me. Unfortunately he had a sprinter on his team, but that's racing."
Niermann said the team would learn lessons from their performance on Opening Weekend, and hopefully enjoy some weather-related luck in the next races.
"We need to be better in position as a team in the key moments," he said. "That wasn't the case [this weekend]. We were there or thereabouts, but not as dominant in other years. That has to be better.
"You also need a little bit of luck," he said. "Last year the weather was different, in Nieuwsblad there was a lot more wind. This time we had really easy circumstances," he said, referencing blue skies that stretched from horizon to horizon and bone dry roads. "That means bigger groups go to the finish, which was what we saw today – maybe 80, 90 guys went to the finish together."
So worse weather is what you need? "That would help, partly, yes," he smiled wryly.
