Analysing the 2026 Tour de France favourites

Tadej Pogačar has raced less than anybody else on this list so far in 2026, but that performance was enough to underline his status as the overwhelming favourite for the Tour de France and just about every other race on the calendar.

Everybody knew exactly what Pogačar was going to do at Strade Bianche, and everybody knew there wasn’t a thing they could do about it. His 79km solo was another addition to his pantheon of absurdly dominant performances, and we can assume there will be more between here and July.

Pogačar will focus on one-day racing for the Spring before riding the Tour de Romandie and Tour de Suisse once his attention switches to stage racing in late April. Like in 2025, He is his own biggest rival. If he stays healthy and focused, it’s hard to picture anything other than a record-equalling fifth Tour victory in July.

Vingegaard’s stock seemed to fall before a pedal was turned in anger this year. A crash and an illness delayed the start of his season, while his coach, Tim Heemskerk, abruptly departed Visma | Lease a Bike and key domestique Simon Yates surprisingly retired.

The gloom around Visma lifted over the course of Paris-Nice, where Vingegaard offered a striking reminder that he remains resolutely one of the best two riders in the world. True, Juan Ayuso’s crash meant that Vingegaard was without a true rival, but the Dane’s solo exhibitions and his sure-footed showings on some chaotic stages were impressive all the same.

Vingegaard is the clear favourite to win his debut Giro d’Italia, and his Tour challenge will hinge on how well he recovers from those exertions, but as things stand, he looks the best of the rest behind Pogačar.

Del Toro was asked to deputise for Pogačar at the UAE Tour in February, and he more than fulfilled his brief with two stage wins and overall victory. Indeed, there were distinct shades of Pogačar’s insatiable appetite about his opening day stage win, when he upset the sprinters, and he won the race by shaking off a dogged Antonio Tiberi on Jebel Hafeet. 

The Mexican followed that up by helping Pogačar to Strade Bianche victory while helping himself to third place. Back in a leadership role at Tirreno-Adriatico, he overcame Giulio Pellizzari to secure overall victory.

Del Toro’s primary duty at his debut Tour will be to support Pogačar, but these days, UAE’s main man doesn’t always need all that much help. If Pogačar spends July in a race of his own again, then Del Toro might well have the freedom to chase a podium spot for himself.

Ayuso should arguably be lower on this ranking given that we still don’t know the full impact of the injuries that forced him to abandon Paris-Nice, but without that crash, he would probably be at least one spot higher than he is now, so we've split the difference.

The Spaniard has made a very confident start to life at Lidl-Trek, where he seems to be revelling in the responsibility of leadership after years in Pogačar’s shadow at UAE. Ayuso hasn’t delivered a spectacular solo win like others on this list, but he has looked sharp at every juncture. The Volta ao Algarve was the best race of the season to date, and Ayuso managed himself well on the summit finishes and delivered a striking time trial to claim overall victory.

Ayuso also started brightly at Paris-Nice, moving into yellow after snagging bonus seconds and leading Lidl-Trek to second in the team time trial. There is an asterisk alongside his prospects as we await news of his return to racing, but on the evidence of the early season, a fully fit Ayuso would be firmly in the mix for the podium in July.

No rider divides opinions quite like Remco Evenepoel. What other previous Grand Tour winner has had his stage racing abilities questioned to the same extent? Those old quibbles re-emerged when Evenepoel fell flat at the UAE Tour. Some pointed to how his streak without a WorldTour stage race win now stands at three years, but that overlooks the assured podium finish at his debut Tour de France in the meantime.

As ever with Evenepoel, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. He made a fast start at Red Bull, winning at Challenge Mallorca and dominating the Volta Valenciana, and he looked to be continuing in the same vein at the UAE Tour when he scorched to time trial victory.

Two sobering outings on summit finishes followed, however, and suddenly Evenepoel’s early-season took on a different complexion. Evenepoel had no excuses for that setback, but it may simply be the case that he was still some way off his optimum climbing weight in February. 

The Belgian has been training on Mount Teide in recent weeks in preparation for the Volta a Catalunya, where the contest with Vingegaard will tell us if the UAE Tour was a blip or a trend.

Seixas could be higher on this list, but it’s still not clear if he will even ride the Tour de France this year. While there are certainly strong arguments against sending a 19-year-old to the world’s biggest race with GC aspirations, there is no denying that he has been one of the season’s outstanding performers so far.

Seixas went toe to toe with a hugely impressive Ayuso in the Algarve, picking up his first pro win in the process, and he then burnt Matteo Jorgenson off his wheel to claim an outrageous solo victory at the Ardèche Classic. Most strikingly of all, he was the only man who was – briefly – able to follow Pogačar at Strade Bianche, and he proceeded to drop Del Toro on the Via Santa Caterina to take second place.

The Frenchman looks to be improving by the week and the hype around his Tour prospects has been growing exponentially. The counterargument is that he is still untested in stage racing, and a three-week event is a completely different exercise to Strade Bianche or Algarve. As Jan Bakelants pointed out last week, Evenepoel was just as impressive at an even younger age, but that didn’t automatically translate to immediate Grand Tour success.

It’s been a mixed start for Oscar Onley at Ineos, but there has been mitigation. He might have fared better on Alto da Fóia at the Volta ao Algarve if he hadn’t been temporarily delayed by Brandon McNulty’s crash and he proved as much by pushing Ayuso all the way on the Malhão three days later. In between, however, Onley delivered a subdued time trial that was all the more disappointing given how many other Ineos riders shone on the day.

At Paris-Nice, Onley was unfortunate to suffer a crash after he had done the hard part and made the key split on the decisive stage 4, and a bout of illness later forced him out of the race. He’ll hope for better luck at the Volta a Catalunya. 

Fellow Ineos neophyte Kévin Vauquelin caught the eye as leader after Onley abandoned, and he had already placed a strong fifth in the Algarve. Ineos don’t have a Tour winner in their ranks just yet, but they look to have picked up two riders with solid GC aspirations in July all the same.

Third in Paris last July, Lipowitz has made a low-key start to 2026, but there is mitigation in that he spent a long period off the bike last autumn after undergoing nasal septum surgery. He wasn’t in the mix with Ayuso and Seixas in a high-octane Volta ao Algarve, riding quietly to eighth place overall, but Red Bull won’t have viewed that showing as any sort of a crisis.

The German lines up with his Tour co-leader Evenepoel at the Volta a Catalunya next week, and both men will be looking for reassurance after those not-entirely-convincing outings in late February. Like in 2025, Lipowitz will hope to build steadily towards July, with the Tour de Romandie and Tour of Slovenia also on his programme. 

Pidcock is in Classics mode for the opening part of the year, but after placing on the podium of last season’s Vuelta a España, he will go to the Tour with genuine GC aspirations for the first time in his career.

He was consistent in his February outings in Spain, winning a stage at the Ruta del Sol, though he would rue that the parcours of the Andalusian race was not as difficult as he had anticipated. He suffered missteps at both Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Strade Bianche, but he will be resolutely in the mix in the Ardennes. 

Before then, Pidcock’s outing at the Volta a Catalunya against Evenepoel and Vingegaard will give us a better appraisal of his stage race potential in 2026.

There was little to separate Tobias Halland Johannessen and Matteo Jorgenson at Tirreno-Adriatico and they are ex aequo in our ranking too after their opening races of the season. Johannessen’s consistency is his calling card, and he has been a steady performer thus far, placing sixth and fifth on the summit finishes at the UAE Tour, and taking fourth overall behind Jorgenson at Tirreno.

Jorgenson has made some changes in 2026, skipping the cobbled Classics in order to focus on the Ardennes, and it will be fascinating to see what the knock-on effect is in July, where he will be Vingegaard’s key support but perhaps also a GC foil.

The American was dropped by a rampant Seixas on his first day of racing at the Ardèche Classic, but he was still fourth there, second at the Drôme Classic the next day and in the mix at Strade Bianche a week later. Most impressively, he jousted with Del Toro on the toughest finales at Tirreno and would likely have been second overall were it not for an unfortunate crash on the gravel at San Gimignano.