Evenepoel, Roglic, Lipowitz and Red Bull's Grand Tour dilemma

A decade is a long time in cycling. The modest squad Zak Dempster left as a rider at the end of 2016 must feel eons removed from the superteam he has rejoined as Chief of Sports ahead of the 2026 campaign.

Bora-Argon 18, as it was then known, was still a Pro Continental squad when Dempster left, albeit on the cusp of a new era of ambition with the imminent arrival of Peter Sagan. These days, with Red Bull as title sponsor, Dempster’s new role will see him oversee one of the most star-studded rosters in the WorldTour.

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s signing of Remco Evenepoel this past summer was years in the making and a statement move from Ralph Denk’s outfit. With Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard never likely to budge from their teams, Red Bull set about acquiring the best available Grand Tour talent with the clear aim of eventually winning the Tour de France.

But although Evenepoel is the brightest star in the Red Bull firmament, he is far from the only galatico on a roster that includes three Grand Tour winners and a further two Grand Tour podium finishers. Dempster is well aware that he faces a delicate balancing act as he decides how best to deploy the arsenal of talent at his disposal.

No other team in cycling has quite as many evenly matched Grand Tour options at their disposal as Red Bull. True, UAE Team Emirates-XRG have the luxury problem of a squad with Tadej Pogačar, João Almeida and Isaac del Toro, but the world champion’s evident superiority makes establishing a hierarchy relatively straightforward. Pogačar will do what he wants, and the others will fall into the line. Over at Visma | Lease a Bike, Simon Yates and Sepp Kuss have both won Grand Tours, but Jonas Vingegaard’s pre-eminence is indisputable.

At Red Bull, by contrast, the picture is more nuanced. Yes, Evenepoel is the marquee signing and still the man most likely to challenge the Pogačar-Vingegaard Grand Tour duopoly despite his travails at this year’s Tour de France. Even so, Florian Lipowitz placed a fine third on his Tour debut in July, while Primož Roglič has five Grand Tours to his name and he will believe he still has the ability to add to that tally.

When Daniel Benson put it to Dempster this week that it would be a puzzle to balance their respective ambitions, the Australian pointed out that they weren’t the only proven three-week riders on his roster.

“There are some guys you’ve not mentioned there in Giulio [Pellizzari] or Jai Hindley as well,” Dempster said. “On top of that, you’ve also got Dani Martinez. People are quick to forget that he was second in the Giro last year. We’ve got an exciting group of guys, and there’s [Aleksandr] Vlasov too.” 

Dempster was quick to add that the depth of Red Bull’s stage racing talent was a benefit rather than a problem, acknowledging that their best plan of attack against Pogačar and Vingegaard would be “with co-leadership strategies.”

That comment would appear to open the door to Evenepoel and Lipowitz lining up together at the Tour, but much will depend on the configuration of the routes of the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España.

As we pointed out last week, ASO certainly didn’t do Evenepoel any favours with a Tour route that features just a single individual time trial, which comes at the beginning of the final week. 

But unless RCS Sport manages to shoehorn a pair of 50km time trials into its route – which will not be unveiled until late November at the earliest – it’s hard to envisage a scenario whereby Evenepoel forgoes the Tour in year one of his Red Bull project.

The team has been reconfigured in his image, with Klas Lodewyck and former Belgian coach Sven Vanthourenhout joining the management, while the appointment of the Belgium-based Allan Peiper as a consultant was also made with Evenepoel in mind.

“In the case of Remco and Lipo, we don’t have the Giro parcours, so we need to steady the ship for the time being and wait,” said Dempster, who met with his riders for the first time at Red Bull’s first 2026 gathering last week. 

“But the way to approach that, and I’ve had that conversation with them, is that there’s enough guys out there for us to fight who aren’t wearing the same jersey as us, so they’re clear on that and committed once we get out on the road and see who deserves the support of the team. But definitely, if you have Remco and Lipowitz up there in their top shape, I know that it would be a co-leadership strategy.” 

At this year’s Vuelta, Hindley and Pellizzari dovetailed their respective ambitions to decent effect, placing fourth and sixth in Madrid, and Dempster will hope that strikingly harmonious co-existence can serve as a template for his Grand Tour leaders across the calendar. 

It remains to be seen, however, just where Roglič fits into the equation. The Slovenian won the Vuelta in his first season at Red Bull in 2024, but he has also suffered repeated ill fortune, with crashes forcing him out of both the 2024 Tour and the 2025 Giro.

At last July’s Tour, meanwhile, Roglič delivered some mixed performances en route to 8th overall. In particular, his long-range attacks in the Alps in the final week weren’t necessarily conducive to defending Lipowitz’s podium place.

Dempster may ultimately have to decide whether to give Roglič leadership for one last crack at the Giro or Vuelta, or to persuade him to take on a super-domestique role for Evenepoel and/or Lipowitz in July. “Primož is still right up there as a priority guy,” Dempster told Dan Benson, though he reiterated that no decisions could be taken until the routes for all three Grand Tours were confirmed.

Ultimately, Red Bull will have to decide between going all-in on a Tour that might essentially be unwinnable against this particular iteration of Pogacar or trying to win a Grand Tour of any description by dispatching some of their top-tier talent to the Giro and Vuelta instead.

In Roglič, Pellizzari, Martinez, Hindley and Vlasov, Evenepoel and Lipowitz have a pool of potential climbing domestiques to match or even surpass what Pogačar and Vingegaard will have at their disposal in July. 

But all that talent can only deliver a leader so far. Ultimately, Evenepoel and Lipowitz would have to find a way to surpass the Tour’s Big Two for themselves. Dempster is adamant that both riders have margin for improvement. “There are things that we’ve discovered that indicate that we can reach a different level,” he said. “How that lines up against your Pogačars and your Vingegaards, you just never know.” 

Easier said than done, but like everything involving Evenepoel, it won’t be boring to watch it all unfold.