Do Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe even need Remco Evenepoel?

It’s finally over, the most drawn out transfer saga in recent times is concluded. Remco Evenepoel’s time at Soudal Quick-Step, the team where he turned professional in 2019, is finished and he will ride for Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe from 2026 onwards. Despite consistent denials from all parties that a transfer was imminent, Evenepoel’s move to the German team has been the worst kept secret within the WorldTour for months. Whispers were abound that it was finally done and contracts were ready for much of the recent Tour de France.

But where now for Evenepoel? Where does this leave him after a difficult ending to the Tour? It was already clear on the eve of the race in Lille that something was amiss. The double Olympic champion is typically calm, collected and measured in his words, although he appeared spiky and on edge when he met the media before the team presentation, stating that he will “never crack under pressure”.

That same pressure will be amplified tenfold by signing for Red Bull and is only set to increase next year when the Tour arrives once more. At the time of Primož Roglič’s arrival at the German team, its then head sports director, Rolf Aldag, said that it had forced the group to recalibrate its goals completely. Evenepoel signing means that those same goals must be recalibrated to a stratospheric level; the stakes could never have been greater.

With his departure confirmed, the mood amongst the camp at Soudal Quick-Step will be one of sadness and regret, even if their outward messaging suggests a stoic, resilient atmosphere and a positive outlook towards the future. The team reshaped itself in order to pursue GC ambitions in all of cycling’s three Grand Tours – with Evenepoel at the forefront of that – although it appears they will now return to the Classics identity of old. An identity they must return to without their most prized possession.