Red Bull downplay report that Evenepoel has agreed 2026 transfer

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe manager Ralph Denk has downplayed a report that Remco Evenepoel has agreed a deal to join his team from 2026, insisting that the Belgian remains under contract with Soudal-QuickStep for next season.

Friday morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport reported that Evenepoel has agreed a deal of “at least” three years with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. According to La Gazzetta, the agreement between rider and team was finalised earlier this week following Evenepoel’s abandon from the Tour de France.

Evenepoel’s existing contract with Soudal-QuickStep expires at the end of next season, but Daniel Benson reported earlier this month that a deal to extricate the Olympic champion from that contract was “closer than ever to being finalised.”

Speaking ahead of stage 19 of the Tour, Denk was coy when asked to corroborate the report in La Gazzetta.

“Remco has a contract with Soudal for next year,” Denk told Marca. “He’s an interesting rider. But if he becomes free, everyone in the peloton will talk to him and try to convince him of their project. You never know. But it’s not a current issue, because he still has a contract.”

Denk’s response was an echo of the one he gave Süddeutsche Zeitung earlier this week when asked about Evenepoel’s possible departure from Soudal-QuickStep.

“18 teams will call Remco and ask, and I'd be stupid not to call,” Denk said, adding that the arrival of Evenepoel would not mean jettisoning the emerging talent Lipowitz. “If you look at the top teams here, they’re not built around just one superstar, but several.”

Under UCI rules, contracts with new riders for the following season cannot be signed and announced until after August 1.

Evenepoel was notably vague on the first rest day of the Tour when he was asked if he could confirm that he would still be a Soudal-QuickStep rider in 2026, simply stating that he had discussed matters with CEO Jurgen Foré.

“26 is still far away. It’s obvious I cannot comment on these things because of course there is speculation, and we have to keep everybody happy,” Evenepoel said. “Of course, there’s a lot of things going on already for years. I read a lot of things that are not true, unfortunately. I had a big discussion with Jurgen [Foré] about this because he’s also worried, but we spoke about it and everything is cleared up. That’s the answer.”

Evenepoel would abandon the Tour on the Col du Tourmalet on stage 14 while he was still lying third overall and wearing the white jersey of best young rider. In Evenepoel’s absence, Red Bull’s Florian Lipowitz wears the white jersey, and the German occupies third place ahead of the final mountain stage.

Although Evenepoel won the Caen time trial on stage 5, he struggled once the Tour hit the Pyrenees and withdrew from the race when he was again distanced on the Tourmalet.

In an Instagram post on Thursday evening, Evenepoel outlined his struggle to reach top form after the training crash that delayed the start of his season, and he revealed that he had started the Tour with a broken rib following a crash at the Belgian national championships.

“Not the worst but definitely not ideal,” Evenepoel wrote. “So I lined up for the hardest race in the world with a broken rib and tired body. Not the best combination.”

It remains to be seen when Evenepoel will return to competition, but it seems unlikely that he will line out at the Vuelta a España in a month’s time, with the World Championships in Kigali and the European Championships in Drôme-Ardèche more firm targets for the Belgian.