For Remco Evenpole (Deceuninck-Quick Step), it doesn't matter in some ways whether it is his first or second start of the 2020 cycling year. The young Belgian star, who has already won five races this year, scored an impressive sixth victory on Thursday with a mountaintop finish on the third stage of the Vuelta a Burgos.

Having already attacked late on the flat terrain of the first stage and almost single-handedly outpaced the rest of the pack, Evempoel was back in the clear 48 hours later on a completely different terrain with just 2km remaining to the summit of the dreaded Picon Blanco.

At the summit, Evenpoel was 18 seconds ahead of George Bennett (Jumbo Visma) and other talented climbers, and 32 seconds ahead of Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton Scott). Other big names such as Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Fabio Al (UAE Team Emirates), and Richard Kalapas (Ineos) were further away.

For the ultra-versatile Evenpoel, already a Classica San Sebastian winner and winner of multiple world championship titles and other races at the junior level, Burgos represents another major step in the cycling hierarchy for the 20-year-old.

Or, if you go back to January and February, when he won the Vuelta a San Juan and the Volta ao Algarve, you could say that Evenpoel is just picking up where he left off before cycling went into suspended animation this March. [But unlike in the Algarve, where Evenpoel earned his first summit victory of the 2020 season after an epic battle with Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), this time the Belgian blew his opponent away at the exact moment he wanted after three-quarters of the way up the climb.

Chaves did his best to open the gap with three big digs, but in hindsight, the Colombian seemed to be postponing the inevitable moment when Evenpoel would break away.

"The last kilometer was very tough because there was a headwind and I was already running as fast as I could," Evenepoel told reporters after the race. But I kept pushing because the wind was so strong on everybody."

"I heard the gap was getting bigger and bigger," - at this point, Evenepoel did not know that Bennett had lost time in the last kilometer - "so it was really good. So that was really good."

"I'm really happy because the team prepared well for this stage.

"All day long they were always listening to my feelings, keeping me out of the wind and bringing me bottles. I couldn't have achieved this victory without my team."

Although he did not mention it, along with almost every other peloton except Ineos and Beulahansgrohe, his teammates also helped to organize the race when Evenpoel missed a dangerous split with around 50 km to go.

"My first goal was not to fall off or lose time, but at the end I heard DS in my earphones saying that he knew I was very fresh and that the others were suffering, so we would do something. I was at my limit and it was a risk, but you have to take risks to win," added Evenpoel.

In the unlikely event that trouble does occur for Evenpoel, Detunink Quickstep has a plan B. A promising youngster, 21-year-old João Almeida, is in fifth place in the Picon Blanco, 45 seconds behind. The two are now in first and fifth place overall.

The Belgian team also has some serious options in Friday's mass sprint stage featuring Sam Bennett. A somewhat tough finale with a short climb in the final kilometer will do Bennett no harm in challenging stage 2 winner Fernando Gaviria (UAE), who was third.

But the main plan going forward for Dečuninck-Quickstep is surely for Evenpoel to win the most high-profile stage race to date in the "new normal".

"It's a dream to win a stage and the overall," he said. Tomorrow it's a sprint, but on Saturday there's a summit finish."

"So two more big days. But the team trusts me and I trust them.