Van Aert attacked on the uphill finale to throw rival teams into disarray, and Brennan accelerated from behind to beat Pau Miquel and Pogačar in the sprint — a stage win built on Visma-Lease a Bike's tactical structure, not pure punch. Hayter had provisionally taken the red jersey mid-stage by chasing bonus seconds in the break, only to arrive seconds behind the peloton and lose it straight back. After a nine-hundredths-of-a-second stage 1 verdict, day two confirms the pattern: Pogačar is controlling this race with positional discipline, and the gap to Hayter remains razor-thin.