NOT pretending to be more knowledgeable. Just sayin...
I think Chris put a bunch of stuff in the blender there and just sort of poured it all out of his mouth, skipping over the details that morphed SIGNIFICANTLY in terms of gaps and sitting on calculus and such over the last 10k. You're right, as they came up on the red kite, that "right to sit on" was all moot.
Further back, around 8 or 9k, Asgreen could certainly have sat on, using Senechal as an excuse. But it's not clear that DQS having a 2 in 12 chance (or about that, if G1 and G2 combined) was better than their 1 in 2 if he did a little work and helped them to stay away. They probably both benefitted from not having to spring against GVA, WVA, and other interlopers, or endure attacks at 2 or 3 k out from riders like Benoot or Van Baarle.
This "right to sit on" thing isn't some absolute right. It's more of an Ace in the Hole that you don't "have to" work because something good is going to happen for your team either way. Which wasn't completely true here, and MVDP knew it. DQS didn't really have an ace in the hole, only maybe a jack. So Asgreen did some work. And won anyway.