'I still believe he can achieve great things in stage races' - Remco Evenepoel’s spring raises new questions about his direction

Inside the team, the shift did not come as a complete surprise.

“He saw what the team was doing in the Opening Weekend and something clicked,” said Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe sports director Sven Vanthourenhout to Wielerflits when asked about Remco Evenepoel’s surprise move into the classics squad. “It had been in the back of his mind before, but that moment really triggered it.”

Evenepoel’s presence in the Tour of Flanders, where he finished third behind Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel, was never part of a long-term script. “We didn’t build the team around him,” Vanthourenhout insisted. “It was very clear: he had to join the group, not the other way around.”

That distinction was important to Vanthourenhout. “The base of the classics team had to remain intact, with or without Remco,” he said. “And he understood that perfectly. From day one, he behaved like one of the guys, not someone above them.”

 “And once he was in, the first evaluation is very positive.”

The performance in Flanders only reinforced that feeling. “We’re proud,” he said. “Not just of the podium with Remco, but of the team as a whole. Four riders in the top fifteen, controlling key moments in the race, staying out of trouble. That’s what we wanted.”

Still, Vanthourenhout is cautious about reading too much into one result. “We’ve built a foundation,” he said. “Now we need to see how we can develop that further. Whether that includes Remco in the same way, we’ll analyse that.”

The bigger question remains where Evenepoel’s future lies. “People like to label him,” Vanthourenhout said. “But if you look at his palmarès today, he’s already one of the very best in one-day races. At the same time, I still believe he can achieve great things in stage races.”

His conclusion is simple. “He’s an all-round rider. That’s the reality.”

Speculation about expanding his classics program has already begun, with Paris–Roubaix briefly mentioned in the aftermath of Flanders. Vanthourenhout dismissed that quickly. “That was never an option,” he said. “Not internally. That came from the outside, from the excitement around the race.”

Instead, the focus remains on collective strength against the sport’s biggest names, including Tadej Pogačar, Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen.

“I think we have to play to our strengths,” Vanthourenhout said. “If we can get two or three riders into the final, we can achieve something really nice.”

For Evenepoel, this spring has not defined his path, but it has clearly widened it. “We’ll see what it brings,” Vanthourenhout said. “But it was very good to have him with us.”