“Wout van Aert is heading to the Vuelta in absolutely flying form” – Jan Bakelants has no doubts despite defeat on gravel return

Wout van Aert left the Belgian Gravel Championships without the title on Sunday, but Jan Bakelants came away from Grobbendonk with no concerns about the Belgian's condition heading into the Vuelta a Espana.

Van Aert was beaten by close friend and regular training partner Daan Soete after the pair rode clear together in the closing stages. Bakelants, who regularly trains alongside both riders, had already seen enough before the race to know they were each in strong condition.

"Last week the two of them were already winding each other up during training," the former Tour de France stage winner and analyst told Het Laatste Nieuws. "They took turns doing their efforts. I quickly realised that Daan was good, and that Wout van Aert is heading to the Vuelta in absolutely flying form. No doubt about it."

Van Aert will start the Vuelta on Saturday, returning to the race for the first time since winning three stages on his debut in 2024.

Sunday's eventual one-two had even been discussed beforehand. "Daan made no secret of the fact that he had made this Belgian Championships a major target," Bakelants explained. "Wout said: 'If you can follow me, I might be able to do something for you.' But what exactly did he mean? Work together so they could both get a good result? Or something more than that?"

Van Aert ultimately did much of the work that shaped the decisive phase. After helping close the gap to the leaders, the Paris-Roubaix winner attacked again late in the race and Soete was able to remain with him.

That prompted questions afterwards over whether Van Aert had effectively handed victory to his friend. "Only Wout can answer that," said Bakelants.

He was equally keen not to diminish Soete's performance. Van Aert had already expended additional energy chasing the front of the race, while the loose sand and technical terrain in Grobbendonk played particularly strongly to Soete's bike-handling ability. "Of course Wout is the better rider, but he had already made an extra effort because he had to close the gap to the leading group," Bakelants said. "And if there was one course where Daan was capable of beating Wout, it was this Belgian Championships."

The closing kilometres included an especially technical passage across military terrain, where the loose sand demanded instinctive reactions as the bike moved underneath the rider. "Daan is simply better at that," Bakelants concluded.

Van Aert nevertheless continued an impressive record in a discipline he has raced surprisingly little. Across four major gravel appearances, he now has two victories, a second place and an eighth at the World Championships.

His only previous Vuelta appearance showed a similarly broad range. Van Aert began the 2024 race with third place in the opening individual time trial, moved into the red leader's jersey and then collected three stage victories before crashing out on Stage 16.

Those victories came in markedly different circumstances.

He was still leading the points classification when his race ended on the road to Lagos de Covadonga. Van Aert had made the breakaway and led over two first-category climbs before crashing on the descent from Collada Llomena. He initially attempted to continue but was eventually forced to abandon.

That premature exit left his debut Vuelta at three stage wins, two days in red and the green jersey still on his shoulders.

The 2026 route again provides opportunities beyond conventional bunch sprints. Van Aert will get an immediate chance to test his condition in the opening individual time trial in Monaco, while several rolling and selective stages later in the race offer terrain on which his ability to climb and still produce a fast finish could become important.

Stage 6 towards Castellon is particularly notable after his weekend on gravel. The stage contains around 3,000 metres of climbing and features an uphill gravel section on Puerto El Bartolo before the descent towards the finish.

The wider route is heavily mountainous, with seven summit finishes and relatively few straightforward sprint stages. That reduces the number of obvious opportunities for the pure fast men, but Van Aert's 2024 victories already showed that he does not need a conventional sprint stage to win at the Vuelta.

Bakelants has also seen first-hand how seriously Van Aert approaches a target. He describes him as "the man with the plan", contrasting his single-minded approach with Soete's more relaxed personality. "The kind of man who gets his teeth into something and doesn't deviate from it," Bakelants said. "If you tell him he has to eat carrots for an entire month to be at his best, he'll eat carrots for a month."

That determination has been tested repeatedly in 2026. An ankle injury disrupted Van Aert's winter, illness delayed his road debut and an infected elbow eventually ruled him out of the Tour de France. Between those setbacks came the biggest win of his season at Paris-Roubaix.

His return from the elbow injury then produced three consecutive stage victories and overall victory at the Tour of Denmark before Sunday's second place on gravel.

Van Aert now heads directly from Grobbendonk towards Monaco. Two years after a crash ended his first Vuelta while he was wearing green, his second begins with three wins already behind him since returning to racing and Bakelants convinced he is arriving in Spain in peak condition.