'Adapt or die' - Jai Hindley finds his place in Red Bull's new reality

Jai Hindley reached the top of the mountain when he dropped Richard Carapaz on the upper reaches of the Passo Fedaia to win the 2022 Giro d’Italia, but the cruel beauty of pro cycling is that its geography is always in flux.

The tectonic shifts in performance that became so apparent after the COVID-19 lockdown have never really abated. Year after year, the level keeps rising, and so do the demands required to keep pace. The summit is always around the next corner. Hindley has had no choice but to keep on climbing.

“As Greg LeMond said, it never gets easier, you just go faster,” Hindley smiles. “You feel the sport is evolving rapidly, the races are getting more and more fast, and it’s not getting any easier, that’s for sure. So, adapt or die, basically.”

Hindley has always been deft at adapting to his circumstances. He started his breakout 2020 Giro as a domestique for Wilco Kelderman at Sunweb, but he slotted neatly into a leadership role – and the pink jersey – on the final weekend of the race. 

On arriving at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Hindley was initially the team’s great Grand Tour hope, and he delivered the Giro in his first season and a fine display at the Tour de France in his second. When Primoz Roglic joined the squad, his place in the hierarchy changed, but, as ever, he simply adjusted to the mood music.

That flexibility will stand him in good stead in 2026, Remco Evenepoel’s first season at the team. Hindley is speaking at Red Bull’s media day in Mallorca, where it has just been announced that he will lead the Giro squad with Giulio Pellizzari, but he is then likely to be repurposed as a deluxe domestique for Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz at the Tour. All in a year’s work.

“Grand Tours for me are like the pinnacles of the sport, so if I can do two in one year, that’s best for me,” Hindley says. “I’ve got a soft spot for the Giro, so I’m always happy to go back there, and then it’s good to do the Tour or the Vuelta afterwards.”

Cycling has a short memory, and Hindley arrived at last year’s Vuelta at something of a crossroads as a Grand Tour rider. His 2024 season was built around an ultimately disappointing Tour, while a crash forced him to abandon this year’s Giro. By the time the Vuelta rolled around, Hindley had gone more than two years without a solid Grand Tour showing.

With Evenepoel’s arrival imminent and with a stacked roster of GC contenders already at Red Bull, Hindley was essentially racing for his future as a leader. His fourth-place finish in Madrid was a timely reminder to Ralph Denk et al of just what he can do over three weeks, and his reward is another tilt at the Giro in 2026.

“If I’m being totally honest, I really needed a good result at a Grand Tour again,” Hindley says. “It had been a while since I had actually done something, maybe since 2023, so personally, I really needed that for myself. It was really nice to be back at the pointy end of a Grand Tour and pretty competitive, especially in the last week. I took a lot away from that.”

The one disappointment for Hindley was that he failed to unseat Tom Pidcock from the final step of the podium in the Vuelta’s dying days, but his assured displays will sustain him as he builds towards the Giro.

So too will his harmonious double act with Pellizzari, though it’s worth noting that Hindley’s previous best Grand Tour displays – at the Giri of 2020 and 2022 – had also come while racing alongside a co-leader. In Hindley’s eyes, the recipe for a successful leadership tandem is straightforward.

“Honestly? No big egos,” he says. “You have to do everything you can and back yourself, and if it goes well, then it goes well for you. But if not, then you have to put everything aside and also be willing to help your teammates. I can expect that with Giulio, and he can expect that of me, so I think trust is a big one.”

Hindley will start his 2026 campaign at the Clásica Jaén before riding Ruta del Sol and Tirreno-Adriatico ahead of the Giro. He is well familiar with the nuances of preparing for the corsa rosa – this will be his sixth appearance – but he also knows that the formula that served him so well in 2022 won’t be enough to win in 2026. 

“I think the level is just going crazy,” Hindley says. “It was probably heading in this direction anyway, but I think COVID was a real accelerator for that. And I mean, we’re probably in a pretty special era of cycling as well. You’ve got arguably one of the best cyclists of all time as the number one rider at the moment, and if you want to compete with him, then you also need to be at your absolute best.”

Back in 2020, when Hindley and Tao Geoghegan Hart emerged as the unexpected stars of the Giro, Vincenzo Nibali’s coach Paolo Slongo estimated that their level of performance was higher than that seen at the previous month’s Tour de France.

In the years since, Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard et al have kept pushing that bar ever higher. Each season, Hindley must wring a little more out of himself to stay in the hunt for the races he covets the most. 

“Everyone is doing everything to the absolute limit, and it’s a pretty brutal sport,” he says. “But honestly, if you want to compete and you want to be in the mix, then you have to be at your absolute best and not one percent less, otherwise you won’t be there. Like I said, you either adapt and do everything you can, or you’re left in the dust.”

There must surely have been times in the past couple of seasons when Hindley questioned the value of all the sacrifices he was making, but he shrugs off the idea that he ever fell out of love with the sport.

“I mean, in the end, everyone has setbacks, and you just have to deal with it, it’s part of being an athlete,” he says. “In the end, it’s not all going to be sunshine and rainbows. You really have to love it, I would say, and you really have to motivate yourself and be hungry for it more than anything. Because if you don't have that hunger and you don't have the drive, then it's just not going to happen.

“I mean, I think you have your moments, but in general, it's better than working at the office, isn’t it? It’s better than laying a brick. I mean, man, I really love it. Okay, sometimes you think like, ‘Fucking hell, what am I doing?’

“But in the end, your worst, your absolute worst day on the bike is still better than your best day at the office. Like, 100%. It’s an awesome sport, and it takes a lot away, but it also gives you really a lot.”

Hindley turns 30 just before the Giro starts, but that’s not the only milestone ahead in 2026. It’s also a contract year, and he is aware that his market value would be boosted considerably by a strong showing at the corsa rosa. 

The Perth native certainly wouldn’t be short of suitors if he were to leave Red Bull at season’s end, and it’s clear, too, that the arrival of Evenepoel and the rise of Pellizzari and Lipowitz could limit his leadership horizons options at Red Bull in the future. 

“I don’t think there’s so many GC guys also on the market. Everyone seems to be locked in till, I don’t know, 2035 or something,” Hindley smiles. “I’m not like stressing about it, I would say. But it’s definitely something that I’m thinking about.”

Still, that doesn’t necessarily add up to a departure. Evenepoel left Soudal-QuickStep for Red Bull precisely because of its resources, and it’s not a coincidence that the squad is one of only five in the peloton to have won Grand Tours in the 2020s. 

“It’s massive for a rider like me to be in one of the best teams in the world, because I'm super well supported in terms of everything, in terms of bike equipment, teammates, coaching staff – everything you want,” Hindley says.

“So it just totally depends on your perspective. I think if you’re pessimistic, you can think like, ‘Oh shit, there’s all these guys here, and now I’m not going to get my shot. Or you can think like, ‘Ok, all these guys are on board, so now I really need to step up my game and be as consistent as possible.” 

Hindley smiles again. “I’m pretty optimistic.”