'Remco is still the team leader' - Red Bull on Evenepoel-Lipowitz Tour partnership
Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe team manager Ralph Denk has used the team's pre-Tour de France press conference to outline how Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz will share leadership at the 2026 race. The German team's Tuesday meeting with the media was Denk's first public address on the Tour de France leadership balance since Evenepoel joined the squad from Soudal Quick-Step over the winter for a reported multi-million-euro fee.
Lipowitz's form going into the Tour has raised the leadership question. The 25-year-old German won two stages and the overall at the Tour of Slovenia last weekend, his first GC win since turning professional.
The result came on the back of a third-place finish at the 2025 Tour de France behind Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, and Lipowitz now arrives at the Tour as one of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe's two GC riders alongside Evenepoel.
"The season for Lipowitz and the entire team has gone phenomenally so far," Denk said to the media in quotes collected by the Belgian press, HLN and Nieuwsblad
Evenepoel, 26, comes to the Tour de France as the reigning world time trial champion and two-time Paris 2024 Olympic champion. The Belgian was Soudal Quick-Step's GC leader at the 2024 Tour de France, finishing third overall. He is also a Vuelta a España winner from 2022.
'Remco is still the team leader'
Denk made clear that Evenepoel will go to the Tour de France as the team's number-one option on paper.
"Remco is still the team leader and Florian Lipowitz is a bit of the second man," Denk said.
The hierarchy reflects the wider media spotlight on Evenepoel rather than a clear sporting gap, the German added.
"I am convinced that this can work. Eventually, there will come a day when one or the other feels better. Then they will have to fight it out between themselves on the road."
Pogačar will be the rider both Red Bull leaders are chasing. The Slovenian arrives at the Tour de France after winning the Tour de Suisse with three stage wins and the overall, taking his sixth one-week stage race victory of 2026 after wins at Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour de Romandie. Denk did not pretend that beating Pogačar would be easy.
"If everything goes normally from his perspective, it will be damn difficult to challenge him at all," said Denk.
The 2026 Tour de France begins in Barcelona on Saturday, 4 July with a 19km team time trial, with the route then heading into the Pyrenees on stage 2 and crossing the French border on stage 3.
The race finishes in Paris on Sunday 26 July after three ascents of Montmartre.
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