The perfect race — Sean Kelly's word, not a hype line. He spent the first 100 km invisible in Visma's wheels, hit Arenberg first wheel on Brennan's lead-out, survived Pogačar's accelerations on Mons and Carrefour without ever fully snapping, then refused the velodrome cat-and-mouse and won a long-form sprint that suited his endurance over Pogačar's explosivity. A first cobbled Monument after two seasons of crashes and near-misses on the pavé. Dedicated the victory to Michael Goolaerts.

• 80 kmHit Arenberg first wheel on Brennan's lead-out
• 65 kmAttacked on Sector 12 — created the duo with Pogačar
• 45 kmMatched every Pogačar acceleration on Mons-en-Pévèle
• 18 kmHeld the wheel through Carrefour de l'Arbre — 'on the limit at times'
• 0.25 kmLaunched the long sprint with half a lap to go, won by a length

The most aggressive ride of the race, against the worst luck. Three punctures and three bike changes — one with 120 km to go that cost close to a minute and a long solo chase, another before the Arenberg-Mons window. Attacked Van Aert repeatedly on every five-star sector, never quite cracked him. On the velodrome, the explosive jump that has won him everything else simply wasn't there after that much chasing. Cobbled Monuments: still zero.

• 120 kmFirst puncture — long solo chase back to the convoy
• 95 kmSecond puncture, between Arenberg and Mons
• 65 kmOnly rider who could follow Van Aert's attack on Sector 12
• 45 kmAttacked on Mons-en-Pévèle — could not gap Van Aert
• 18 kmPressed again on Carrefour — Van Aert held
• 0.25 kmCould not come around in the velodrome sprint

The four-peat bid was over in 2,400 metres of forest. Two punctures inside Arenberg, a brief and abandoned attempt to ride Philipsen's bike, a roadside wheel change from Del Grosso, then a third flat before the sector ended. Exited Arenberg nearly two minutes off the front in a race where you cannot afford fifteen seconds. The fourth place — a furious ride across the chase group after the duo had already gone — is consolation. To Dutch press: 'It's hard to accept losing a race like that. My legs were good, my position was perfect, and you end up changing bikes twice just as the fight opens.'

• 95 kmPunctured twice inside Trouée d'Arenberg
• 95 kmTried Philipsen's bike (too small), back to his own bike via roadside
• 95 kmThird puncture before exiting the sector
• 5 kmBridged across the chase group to take 4th, fifteen seconds adrift

A mechanical and a bike change in the middle of the race forced Pedersen into a long, solo chase to even reach the team-car convoy, never mind the favourites' group. When the front split formed on Sector 12, Pedersen was on the wrong side of it. He pivoted with rare clarity — turned domestique for Stuyven, took longer pulls in the chase group, and helped engineer his teammate's third place. The day he came to win became the day he gave Lidl-Trek the podium they came for. Admitted: 'I didn't have the legs to win. It was logical to go all-in for Jasper.'

• Mid-race bike change, long solo chase to the convoy
• 65 kmCaught the wrong side of the front split on Sector 12
• 30 kmSwitched to working for Stuyven — long pulls in the chase group

Ganna's Roubaix question is whether a diesel powerhouse can survive into a small group sprint. With the race resolving into a two-up, his card never came up. Inner Ring caught him 'thirty seconds behind and closing, towing Jordi Meeus across' inside the last 20 km. He didn't quite bridge. The Dwars-door-Vlaanderen win earlier in the spring (where he edged Van Aert) showed what he can do when the race fits him. Roubaix 2026 was not that race.

• 20 kmLate chase across the chase group, with Meeus on his wheel

The fastest sprinter in the race, in lieutenant kit. Philipsen's job was to shepherd Van der Poel into the final hour and, if the race somehow stayed bunched into the velodrome, finish it. Neither half of that plan survived Arenberg. His own bike was briefly commandeered by Van der Poel before being deemed too small. After that the Alpecin selection fragmented and Philipsen never reconnected with the front of the race.

• 95 kmVan der Poel briefly took his bike during the Arenberg puncture sequence — abandoned because too small

Merlier's Roubaix is always a calculated coin-flip: arrive in any kind of group sprint and he's the fastest man in the race; lose contact before Mons and you've lost him entirely. He never got the day he needed. To Belgian press: 'I didn't have top legs.' Switched early to working for Dylan Van Baarle inside the Soudal block, then faded out of the front of the race.

• 90 kmMade the early sprint card pivot — switched to working for Van Baarle

On almost any other team Milan would have started Roubaix as a co-leader; with Pedersen and Stuyven both on the roster he was support from the gun, charged with holding Pedersen's wheel through the early sectors and then offering himself as a sprint option if a group of fifteen came to the velodrome. The first half worked. The second half never happened. Dropped before Mons.

The under-twenty British sprinter that Visma have spent a season billing as Wout van Aert's future heir produced the lead-out detail that decided where Van Aert hit Arenberg. Burning a young Classics leader to perfectly position another's first cobbled Monument is the kind of sacrifice that gets written into team mythology. Dropped before the closing hour; the work was already done.

• 80 kmLead-out delivered Van Aert first-wheel into Trouée d'Arenberg

Lotto's protected card on a long road back from an off-season ankle injury that interrupted his winter. Public race reporting available so far does not document a specific De Lie storyline at Roubaix — no front-of-race feature, no flagged crash or mechanical, no quoted post-race interview. The most defensible read is the most boring one: he raced inside the bunch through the early hour, was shed when the pace ramped into the Arenberg-Mons window, and rolled into Roubaix outside the timed group. To be revised as more coverage surfaces.

Meeus is the team's fast finisher who can survive the longer one-day races, and his Roubaix played out exactly to that label — never in the very front of the race, never out of it. Inner Ring's most memorable line on him is the one that captures Red Bull's day: 'Only Ganna was thirty seconds behind and closing, towing Jordi Meeus across.' He used Ganna's wheel inside the final 20 km to make the late chase. Didn't quite bridge to the chasers behind the duo.

• 20 kmOn Ganna's wheel in the late long-range chase

Did not race Paris-Roubaix 2026. Jorgenson's Visma program for the spring centred on the Ardennes block — Amstel, Flèche Wallonne, Liège — with the cobbled Monuments left to Van Aert. A deliberate split, not an injury. He'll have his own page-turn in the season log a fortnight earlier in the Ardennes.