'We've got full faith in him' – Red Bull explain Evenepoel's revised Tour de France build-up

Remco Evenepoel’s race programme has undergone a few changes since he was first presented as a Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider in Mallorca last December. First, the Challenge Mallorca was added to the mix and then, after some clumsy subterfuge, he confirmed he would be making his Tour of Flanders debut after all.

But shortly after Evenepoel brought the curtain down on his classics campaign with third place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Red Bull announced another tweak to his schedule, indicating that the Belgian would not race again before the Tour de France.

As in 2024 and 2025, Evenepoel was scheduled to ride the Critérium du Dauphiné as a warm-up for the Tour, but the race now known as the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes has been excised from his schedule. It remains to be seen if Evenepoel will line out at the Belgian Championships the weekend before the Tour, but there will be no stage race on his programme in June. 

“In the first part of the year we actually added a couple of races like Mallorca and Flanders, obviously, and then Remco went all the way through the spring, winning Amstel and going to Liège,” Red Bull chief of sports Zak Dempster told Domestique when he visited the Giro d’Italia this week.

“We really just stepped back and said, ‘Okay, what will it take for him to be in his best possible shape for the Tour de France?’ And we felt like a bit of a longer build-up and working in a really calm way was the right way to do it, so we’ve gone for that approach.”

Although it marks a change from Evenepoel’s previous tilts at the Tour, the decision to go without racing for more than two months bears distinct echoes of how he built towards his overall victory at the 2022 Vuelta a España.

On that occasion, the Tour de Suisse in June marked Evenepoel’s final stage race before the Vuelta. In the two months that followed he limited himself to just three race days – the time trial and road race at Belgian Championships, and the Clásica San Sebastián, which he won in emphatic fashion.

“If you look back to the Vuelta he won, he only really did San Sebastian on the way there, so it’s not a new thing,” said Dempster. “We’ll see how it works out.”

In other words, Evenepoel’s main goal in his first season at Red Bull will essentially see him replicate an approach that was tried and tested from his time at Soudal Quick-Step. Then again, Evenepoel has always had a reputation as a meticulous trainer, and the long lead-in to the Tour will allow him to work in a more controlled environment rather than get carried along by full-throated racing at the Dauphiné.

The race served Evenepoel well in 2024, when he was chasing condition and his racing weight after his crash at Itzulia Basque Country, but he may have delved too deep into his reservoirs when he returned to the Dauphiné ahead of his ill-fated 2025 Tour.

But was the change in programme for 2026 Evenepoel’s own choice or a decision made by Red Bull on his behalf?

“We’re constantly talking about the plans around riders just to sense check our thinking, and sometimes you need people to play devil’s advocate,” Dempster said.

“Obviously, he was a part of that discussion. In the end, I think it’s for the team and especially his performance team to come to him and say, ‘Okay, based on the information we have right now, we feel this is your best plan.’ 

“And in the end, he wants to do his best plan, right? He wants to hit his goals in the best shape and, all together, we decided that this was the best approach. So now let’s see if it works out.”

Like Tadej Pogacar, Evenepoel is currently training at altitude at Sierra Nevada. And, like the Tour champion, who will train at Isola 2000 after the Tour de Suisse, this is the first of two blocks of altitude training for Evenepoel before July.

“He’ll be in Sierra for three weeks, then he comes down, does a block of training, and then he goes into another camp, including some recons,” Dempster said. “He’ll be in the team environment for around five or six weeks in total, including the altitude blocks.”

Evenepoel has notched up seven wins since signing for Red Bull, including Amstel Gold Race and the Volta Valenciana, while he also took a fine third place on his debut Tour of Flanders. He struggled on the climbs at the UAE Tour, however, and he was a distant fifth after suffering a crash at the Volta a Catalunya. At Liège-Bastogne-Liège, meanwhile, he placed third without ever really challenging Pogacar and Paul Seixas.

“We’ve got full faith in him,” Dempster said. “We were really proud of everything he brought to the team in the spring. Obviously, everyone would like to win every bike race they start, but unfortunately, that’s not possible. 

“But taking third in his first Flanders was a really important result, and winning Amstel was another great result. He would have obviously liked to challenge for the win at Liège, but it doesn't always come off like that. 

“At the same time, he started racing at a really good level from Mallorca onwards, and that was also why we made this decision to get to our best place for the Tour de France. To do that, we felt a longer runway was needed.”