Back with a bang! Remco Evenepoel outsprints Wout van Aert to take thrilling Brabantse Pijl win in first race of 2025

Remco Evenepoel has taken an incredible win on his return to racing Brabantse Pijl 2025, following a thrilling battle with compatriot Wout van Aert, he outsprinted the Visma star at the line to seal the victory.

Six riders managed to work their way into the early breakaway of the day. Tuur Dens (Team Flanders - Baloise), Jens Reynders (Wagner Bazin WB), Joren Bloem (Unibet Tietema Rockets), Ådne Holter (Uno-X Mobility), Iúri Leitão (Caja Rural - Seguros RGA) and Antonio Jesús Soto (Equipo Kern Pharma) being those riders up the road.

At 48km to go the break were caught though, and immediately, Wout van Aert and Remco Evenepoel came to the fore with some vicious accelerations at the front of the race. As the all-star Belgian duo threatened to sail away from the rest of the race, a massive effort from Israel - Premier Tech's British prodigy Joseph Blackmore managed to bridge the gap and make it a trio at the front. By 30km to go, the podium of the race already looked settled. Rolling through like a team time trial, the leading trio had already built up an advantage of around a minute.

Although the peloton were struggling to close the gap to Van Aert, Evenepoel and Blackmore, they weren't really losing any further time either as the gap had stabilised at 45 seconds heading into the last 20km. By the time the final lap began though, that gap had been cut to just 34 seconds, giving the chase some renewed hope of saving their race.

For the first time since their initial attack, the pace was raised again at the front on the cobbled climb of the Hertstraat, with an Evenepoel acceleration seeing Blackmore drop away. As the Brit was then soon swallowed up by the chase, there was no sign of wilting from either Evenepoel or Van Aert, with the pair retaining a lead of around 40 seconds at the bottom of the Moskesstraat.

As the chase stopped working together and began attempting to attack each other following the Moskesstraat, the advantage of Van Aert and Evenepoel pushed ever closer towards the one minute mark. At 2km to go though, the cohesion between the two Belgians stopped, with Van Aert refusing to come through for his turns. Evenepoel was still on the front as they opened the sprint for the line and incredibly he proved to have too much in the sprint for Van Aert, sealing a winning return to the bunch!