Evenepoel knows what he needs to beat Pogacar and believes he can win the Tour in 2026

With the recruitment of Remco Evenepoel, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe attracted another leader. The team thus seemed to have to prepare for a difficult case, because who do you send where? The Belgian will go to the Tour de France, the formation announced on media day. He wants to win there, and he says that could happen as early as this summer.

So Evenepoel will go to the Tour this summer. "Everyone who smells the chance to win a big tour wants to win the Tour," the Belgian said earlier. To win the Tour, it is clear who has to be beaten. "It's no secret that Pogacar has been outstanding in recent years, but we want to get as close as possible and hopefully succeed."

Speaking with Sporza, Evenepoel elaborates. "If we go with a plan, we should only think of the advantages." In the Tour de France, the Belgian will share the leader's role with Florian Lipowitz. "Florian and I are both very ambitious, but we are two different riders."

"I am more explosive, Florian has to get up to speed as a diesel," the former Soudal Quick-Step rider continued. "We are opposites and together that can only turn out well. We have to complement each other and not work against each other to go for the goal of this team: to win the Tour one day."

That could be as early as next summer. Does Evenepoel believe he can win the Tour in 2026? "Yes," the Belgian answered somewhat doubtfully. "If everything keeps going well and if I can experience a very good winter, good training and the points I'm looking for in the races in the spring," he immediately mentions the conditions.

For that, we as viewers should see signs early on. "If I can already show in Catalonia that I'm there to win like I was in 2023 for example towards the Giro, then I definitely think I'll be able to reach that level. Also with the framework I have here, the support and the teammates that are here, all the science that comes here. Then I think there is still a lot of progression margin."

As mentioned, Evenepoel will then have to beat Pogacar in particular. The Slovenian recently let it be known that "it would scare him if Evenepoel improved at his new team." Those words also landed with the Belgian himself. "I overheard something about it, yes. But whether he says that seriously? It could also be that he says that to play with my feet," he laughed about it.

Still, Pogacar is the target for Evenepoel, and even higher. "I want to be better than him. That's very difficult, we all know that. But that's why I came here. To take those steps; to go over it, on it and over it. That will take a lot of strength, but I'm very motivated and I really needed this new step to kind of hit a ceiling all the way open. I hope to boom through it this year."

The Aerokogel van Schepdaal knows what is still lacking. "Your foundation has to be there before you can work on that high intensity, the real VO2 max training. That's the point where I can still improve the most. It also makes sense: when Tadej attacks, I can keep up for a while, but not for too long. I have to work on that now," he said.

"Of course that's easy to say," Evenpoel continued. "But I did learn to enjoy suffering on training more again. I can do it again. I didn't succeed for a long time because I was too far behind, but now I can give up again on training and you need that to go over your limit."