The Groupama-FDJ cycling team had high hopes on Thursday in the Grand Prix de Denain-Porte du Hainaut. Unfortunately, they never were in a position to achieve them. Caught off guard with sixty kilometres to go, the French team then didn’t manage to come back to the front. Victory went to Matthew Brennan in an eight-man group, while Lewis Askey still secured tenth place in the peloton.
A few weeks before the real “Hell of the North,” a small Paris-Roubaix was on the menu this Thursday. For several years, the Grand Prix de Denain-Porte du Hainaut has indeed made cobblestones its trademark, and in this 2025 edition, no fewer than thirteen sectors featured in the second half of the race, for a total of twenty-three kilometres of cobbles. On the tarmac, the race was also very intense at the start, as a lot of breakaway attempts occurred for around sixty kilometres. “The race was fast for a long time,” said Frédéric Guesdon. “The good move of four riders went after about an hour and a half of racing. It settled down a bit, but we almost immediately tackled the cobblestone sectors, so the pace picked up again. There was a crash in one of the first sectors, and a group of thirty broke away. Then small groups managed to bridge across, but it really opened up the race.” Until the real turning point came in the fifth sector, from Capelle to Ruesnes.
“We were never in a position to have an impact on the race,” Frédéric Guesdon
About twenty riders broke away from the bunch, without a single rider from Groupama-FDJ. “The positioning wasn’t good, maybe because we didn’t quite have the legs, and we found ourselves one step behind,” Frédéric explained. “Then there was a chance to rectify the situation, but we weren’t able to do it.” In one of the toughest sectors of the day, from Maing to Querenaing, Lewis Askey tried to close the thirty-second gap separating him from the leading group, but it proved unsuccessful. “We believed in it a bit when he went, because he made a strong attack, but they were working well together up front, and it got complicated for him,” Frédéric said. “We were never able to get back in the mix after that. There were too many teams represented at the front, and no one to really lead the chase in what was left of the peloton.” Up front, the group gradually reduced by half, and there were only eight men left to fight for victory in the last ten kilometres. “In the final, some of the leading riders punctured or had mechanical issues, and some teams started to chase,” added Frédéric. “But we were no longer in control; everything depended on the others.”Eventually, the peloton battled for ninth place, thirty seconds after Matthew Brennan’s victory. Arnaud De Lie won the bunch sprint ahead of… Lewis Askey. “It’s good for Lewis, who deserved a result, but we were never in a position to have an impact on the race as we had hoped,” commented Frédéric. “It’s disappointing because we thought we would play a role in this race. We didn’t deliver as a team today. We must now analyse the reasons for it and absolutely bounce back.”
