Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are hoping Remco Evenepoel can lift the team's ambitions at the 2026 Tour de France and throughout the year as the German WorldTour team tries to challenge rival super teams like UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Visma-Lease a bike and Lidl-Trek.
Red Bull managed to convince Evenepoel to leave Soudal-QuickStep a year before the end of his contract and reportedly even helped fund the deal so the Belgian can race for the German team next season.
Team manager Ralph Denk now faces the task of satisfying Evenepoel's expectations and managing the egos and ambitions of fellow Grand Tour contenders Primož Roglič and Florian Lepowitz, all while keeping team owner and title sponsor Red Bull happy.
Denk is hoping for what he calls the 'Sagan effect', a repeat of the 2019 success for the team, when the Slovakian's presence inspired all his riders to step up and the team won 47 races and finished second in the UCI team rankings.
“Remco stands for ambition. He doesn’t just want to ride – he wants to shape cycling," Denk said when the deal with Evenepoel was announced on August 5.
"He brings not only exceptional athletic talent, but also a remarkable mindset. His determination, professionalism, and relentless drive to succeed are truly inspiring."
Denk has spoken further to Sport am Samstag podcast in Germany.
"Perhaps this is also a great opportunity for everyone else on the team to develop in Remco's slipstream. He will have to endure the pressure, but also take it off the others. That's why I'm very confident that the project will work," Denk said during the podcast, his words reported widely, including by trusted German website Radsportnews.
"I'm sure that we'll repeat the effect we had with Peter Sagan in 2019. He was the figurehead for our young team back then. We had the most successful year in our team's history in 2019. We were second in the team world rankings and celebrated 47 victories. But only four of them were by Peter personally, all the others by [Emanuel] Buchmann, [Pascal] Ackermann, [Max] Schachmann, [Sam] Bennett, and so on."
Denk expects Evenepoel to be successful in the Classics as well as in the Tour.
"Remco is not just here for the Tour de France," Denk makes clear.
"He's also there for many one-day races, for the Classics, where he's achieved his greatest successes.
"We want to win one of them again, but we also want to have a lot of victories, and I think Remco Evenepoel can help us a lot with that."
The Tour de France remains the biggest goal for Evenepoel and for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. The Belgian decided to leave Soudal to have the funding and support to target the Tour in the best years of his career. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe invested in Evenepoel in the hope he can win the Tour or at least challenge Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.
As Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe finalised the deal with Evenepoel and then struggled at the Tour de France, Lipowitz stepped up and finished a surprise third overall and on the final podium in Paris. Roglič also returned to his best and was fifth overall before sacrificing his GC chances for a shot at a stage victory.
Roglič, Lipowitz, Jai Jindley and other riders are under contract for 2026. It is up to Denk to manage their ambitions during the season and especially across the three Grand Tours.
In theory, Evenepoel will be team leader at the Tour de France but Denk does not want a public leadership debate, despite pressure in Germany to back Lipowitz.
"The Tour de France is perhaps a race that we will have to discuss internally at some point," Denk said, convinced that Evenepoel and Lipowitz can ride together. Roglič is likely to target the Giro d'Italia or the Vuelta a España in the final year of his contract at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
"I would say this is a good fit for Florian. We've discussed it in detail," Denk said.
"I think it's cool that Germany is discussing cycling. But there are eleven months until the Tour de France, and we certainly won't start that discussion now.
"To make such decisions, we need to know the routes. Once you have the routes, you can discuss line-ups. Now, eleven months before the Tour, it's far too early, and that's why I won't allow this discussion."
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