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…