Hair cropped short and wearing a logo-free blue hoodie, Remco Evenepoel sits in the late-afternoon sun in central Mallorca, looking ahead to the next phase of what has already been an illustrious career. Around him, journalists and film crews hustle and bustle, setting up cameras and microphones in corners of the small arts and events café that his new employers have chosen, perhaps a little quirkily, as the venue for the 2026 Red Bull-BORA-Hansgrohe team’s unveiling.
As double Olympic gold medalist, world road and time trial title champion, Vuelta a España and Liège–Bastogne–Liège winner, and podium finisher at the Tour de France, the 26-year-old Belgian’s move to the German team was the biggest deal of the year. Now, Evenepoel is preparing to attempt a quantum leap in his already glittering career. His transformation from prodigy to superstar is complete.
“I have all my information from the past in my backpack,” he says. “I’ve taken it to this new team and now it’s up to our collaboration to become a new version of myself.”
The still-boyish Evenepoel is spearheading the Red Bull team’s 2026 campaign, alongside talented German Florian Lipowitz, third overall in the 2025 Tour, and the perennial Slovenian, Primož Roglič. All this talent may be making the top table a little crowded at Ralph Denk’s superteam, but as the new season comes into view, everyone is all smiles. We will see how things pan out.
I know that if everything goes well, I can reach a very high level. I want to be the best. It’s also my ambition to win the Tour, to win the Giro. I want to win all the races that it’s possible to win.
Team founder Denk has assembled a high-talent, high-value, all-star roster, which, with the addition of Evenepoel, can now compete with the all-conquering UAE Emirates team, led by Tadej Pogačar.
As the only rider able to rival Pogačar (and even humiliate the Slovenian in the time trial at last year’s worlds in Rwanda), Evenepoel looks worth the 7 million euro buyout clause that Denk’s team paid to prize him away from Soudal-Quick-Step.
It was no secret that if Evenepoel wanted to win the Tour de France at some point in his career, he needed to move away from his old team and start over. In fact, such a move was long overdue. “There was this roof that I wanted to punch through, but I wasn’t getting there,” he says. “I was frustrated with the fact that we were blocked.”
He stayed with Soudal-Quick-Step, he says, in the hope that the team would eventually be able to fully support his stage racing ambitions. Eventually, his frustration overwhelmed him. “I was promised things, a lot of changes and I believed it. Then at some point, I felt ‘Okay, this is never going to happen—it’s a no-brainer, I need change.’”
“There were a lot of ideas, but they never worked out, whereas here they have an idea and everybody goes for it,” he says of the revamped Red Bull setup. “With so many smart people around me in this team, with the group of riders going up in level, this opens a lot of doors.”
He’s right. There’s a fresh crew of innovative thinkers that have moved to Denk’s team, including—ironically, given that Evenepoel had at one point been close to joining the British team—a contingent of former INEOS Grenadiers backroom staff. Among the INEOS defectors are sports directors Zak Dempster and Oli Cookson, plus the renowned aerodynamics and performance guru, Dan Bigham.
Now, the Grenadiers loss may prove to be Red Bull’s gain. “It was pretty close,” Evenepoel says, of the stop-start negotiations with the Jim Ratcliffe-owned cycling team, but adds, “There were some delays and I couldn’t really wait any more.”
“Everybody wants to win the Tour,” the Belgian acknowledges, “but everybody knows that Tadej has been outstanding. For us, it’s important to go to the Tour with a really strong team to prove we have a big future. We are aiming to be the best team in the world.”
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