Red Bull changes Tour de France plan for Evenepoel and Lipowitz

With two months to go until the Grand Départ, the Geman squad have begun to sharpen the preparation of their two leaders. The most striking part of the plan is what Remco Evenepoel will not do.

The Belgian will not race again in the coming weeks. Evenepoel had initially been due to ride the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (former Critérium du Dauphiné), but Red Bull have now decided to remove that race from his programme. Instead, his road to Barcelona will be built around recovery, route reconnaissance and targeted training, with an altitude camp scheduled in May.

The decision comes after a demanding spring in which Evenepoel accumulated 25 race days. Red Bull’s sporting management have concluded that another race block would bring less benefit than a more controlled build-up.

“We decided together with Remco to take a break from racing after an intense spring,” said Zak Dempster, Chief of Sports at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in a press release by the team. “The goal is for him to arrive in Barcelona completely fresh. After analysing his 25 race days, we see greater benefit in a balanced alternative programme than in adding further race load.”

Evenepoel will look back on his spring with mixed feelings. He began strongly, dominating his first races in Spain and collecting a string of victories, but the UAE Tour proved a disappointment.

In the Volta a Catalunya, he crashed heavily on stage 3 after making the front group with Jonas Vingegaard in a crosswind stage. In the days that followed, however, he made an excellent impression, working for Florian Lipowitz and then attacking on the final stage. He carried that encouraging form into his surprise debut at the Tour of Flanders and then on to victory at the Amstel Gold Race.

At Liège-Bastogne-Liège, however, his performance fell short of expectations again, as he was forced to let Tadej Pogačar and Paul Seixas go early on La Redoute.

Florian Lipowitz, meanwhile, comes into the next phase from a different place. The German finished second overall at the Tour de Romandie on Sunday, continuing a consistent run through the spring stage races after a third place in the Volta a Catalunya and an eight place at the Volta ao Algarve.

Rather than adding more immediately, he will now take a short recovery block at the end of the week before beginning his own altitude camp later this month.

From there, Lipowitz will head to the Tour of Slovenia, which is set to be his final race test before the Tour. A short training block will follow.

“Florian has been extremely consistent across his last three stage races,” Dempster said. “We achieved the desired performance stimulus this spring, and most importantly, he gained a lot of confidence in the path we’ve mapped out together. We will now continue on this path with patience and consistency over the next two months.”

Both riders are now set for a quieter run-in to the Tour, which starts in Barcelona on July 4 with a team time trial and finishes in Paris on July 26.