Remco Evenepoel has only been working with Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe for a couple of months, and only met all of his new teammates in the last few days, but already the Olympic champion is at peace with his decision to leave Soudal Quick-Step a year earlier than planned. Everywhere he turns he sees fellow world class riders and the best in class staff. He achieved great things at Quick-Step, but he can achieve so much more at Red Bull.
“I think all of the stuff the engineers are testing is mainly because of Red Bull and it’s quite impressive,” Evenepoel tells the press at his new team’s 2026 launch in Mallorca. “Of course they bring a lot of money into the team so that makes things in life much easier for us all. But it’s really nice to see all of that, to have all of these opportunities, and for the moment I’m just really happy with how things are going. Communication is very good in this team, so that’s a very, very big change as well. We actually speak about everything and every day as well, so it’s really impressive. It’s those things I was really looking for and I’m happy to find them here.”
This is not to say, of course, that Evenepoel wasn’t supported during his seven years at Quick-Step. He was. In fact, he was so supported and backed that Quick-Step sacrificed their entire identity of being a Classics superpower to turn themselves into a GC outfit for Evenepoel’s sake. But what is undeniable – and why Evenepoel flirted with leaving for the past three years – was that Quick-Step couldn’t match the budgets of the top teams and therefore the resources. A world class rider like Evenepoel – a Grand Tour, two-time Monument and double Olympic champion winner, let’s not forget – deserves the very best. Red Bull can provide that. “The level is really going up in this team, it’s a growing team,” he continues. “We are aiming to be the best team in the world, so we need the best riders for that, and I think we’re coming really close to that.
If there are two people who are really going to get the best out of Evenepoel and turn him into a Tour de France winner, as well as further strengthening his reputation as this century’s best time triallist, it’s his new coach, Dan Lorang, and Dan Bigham, the team’s head of engineering. Bigham worked at Ineos Grenadiers before joining Red Bull in September 2024, and is regarded as the sport’s foremost aerodynamic expert. “I of course knew who he was briefly, and we’ve been in the US together for four or five days at the Specialized wind tunnel, and it’s very impressive to see how organised these guys are,” Evenepoel comments.
“He’s also working very close with Jonny Wale – they’re best friends, the way I see them – so it’s very good for us that those guys are willing to test everything. We will gain a lot of time with it in the season as we don’t have to go to every tunnel every two to three months to test some of their stuff. They always do a lot of preparations and we test the final result. That’s the set up we go for.
“To give an example, I did about 50 runs in the wind tunnel a few months ago and they just had everything prepared for me. I went in, came out, something new, in, out, so for me it’s really easy to have such structured planning with them. I am very curious how we will keep developing. The first meeting and coming together was very positive.”
Evenepoel was the most in-demand rider at his new team's season launch.
Evenepoel was coached for seven years by Koen Pelgrim at Quick-Step, and he dedicated many of his victories to him. “I had really good years with Koen, really a lot of very nice moments and victories that are mostly thanks to him and his training,” Evenepoel says. But, as he recognises, “now it’s time for a new chapter and a new coach and hopefully to become a better rider.”
He’s already noticed differences after swapping Pelgrim for Lorang. “It was quite a big change, but I think everything is going well for the moment,” he says. “The biggest difference is that we are starting with some efforts already in the second week of training, and especially the third week, whereas before I was used to riding a month with just riding. But now we try to open up the volume straight away so that’s the biggest change. We also have a lot of communication together. When the hard training sessions are, we speak every day so that’s really good, and it’s sometimes good to change for some things.”
Another change for Evenepoel will be how he approaches next year’s Tour de France. After two years of being Quick-Step’s sole GC leader at the race, in 2026 Red Bull plan on attacking the Tour with a two-pronged approach: both Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz, who finished third on debut in 2025, just like Evenepoel did the year before.
“It will be the first time I go to a Grand Tour with double leadership, and it’s the best way for us to do well,” he insists. “We are both different types of riders in terms of tactics and decisions in the race, and we can only try and go for it and see how it goes. Hopefully we can both end up together as high as possible. Whether it’s myself or Florian, we want to be on the first step, but it’s a very difficult one to do.”
As Evenepoel seeks to get closer to Tadej Pogačar and claim a first yellow jersey, there is no doubting his motivation and commitment to do so. “I want to improve in general, so I think it’s necessary that if you want to be the best you need to be the best in everything.” he says. “I am just going to work on everything and try to be the best version of myself and we will see how good it will be. For myself I will just try to improve myself as much as possible. There are a lot of new things that I have learned in this team that I am now doing and I think all of these things will help me to become a better rider. I hope it’s going to be enough.”
