With headlines about Remco Evenepoel’s second place making him ‘best of the rest’ or ‘the first mortal’ at the Tour de France, the question that will likely occupy Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe over the coming months and until next July is: just how off the charts is it to think of beating Tadej Pogačar one day?
“Right now, it’s pretty far-fetched as an idea,” is how sports director Patxi Vila responds when asked about Pogačar’s current superiority and if an end is in sight short-term.
Given the margin of nearly six and a half minutes separating the now five-time Tour winner and his closest challenger on GC in the 2026 race, it’s hard to disagree.
Latest Videos FromCyclingnews
However, as Vila tells Cyclingnews, further down the line it’s maybe not quite as simple as that.
For one thing, the rate of progress Evenepoel has shown over the last few months is such that it strongly suggests the Belgian star has no small degree of room for improvement. And Pogačar’s own track record in the Tour also offers some clues as to what could, on paper, be possible for the Red Bull racer in the future.
You may like
Not only that, as Vila points out, but not even the greatest-ever athletes like Pogačar can dominate forever. So if the Slovenian seems like he’s in another league right now, Red Bull’s idea is to go on preparing Evenepoel to be ready to go all-out when Pogaar inevitably shows signs of running out of steam.
“Targets are there to be beaten and even the biggest champions reach a point when they’ve stopped being so dominant,” Vila told Cyclingnews just a few hours before the Tour reached Paris.
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
“So each day that goes by is a day less for when that day comes, and we have to be ready for it.
“We know that Pogačar will be difficult to challenge, but we should concentrate on the steps we’ve already taken as a team. In this Tour we’ve shown we’re capable of going head to head with any squad.”
Evenepoel took an important win ahead of Pogačar on stage 15 (Image credit: Getty Images)
The best news for Evenepoel’s camp is not just how much he’s progressed this July, but in what areas and when, Vila says. It is clear that Evenepoel is not just better at climbing, but he also was getting better in the third week, just when the race was at its toughest – and as the team had planned and hoped would happen.
What to read next
“He’s taken a lot of major steps in terms of being very consistent throughout,” Vila says. “And he has known how to handle the bad moments, too, above all in the first week, which also forms part of any Grand Tour racer’s success.
“The plan was to go from less to more up to the third week: not just him, the whole team, Maxim [Van Gils] and Jai [Hindley] have been phenomenal, too and we really did miss Florian [Lipowitz – who crashed out on stage 16] in these last few days, too.
“It would have been very different to play the Tour game with two leaders rather than one, and given Florian and Remco’s different talents it could have been very interesting to see what they could. Just like the rest of our riders, he was getting better in the last part of the race, too.
“But that’s just been the way it worked out, and we can’t change that.”
As for Evenepoel’s progress in the third week, the fact he was on the up in week three just when most of the peloton was seriously beginning to flag can only be encouraging, Vila says. On top of which, even the toughest stage of the Tour to Alpe d’Huez across three HC monster climbs of the calibre of the Croix de Fer, Galibier and Col de Sarenne was “only just been out of his reach,” with Evenepoel finishing second and a scant 25 seconds behind stage winner Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost).
“That has to give him a lot of motivation and show him he’s on the right road. ‘Always focus on the process’ is what I tell the riders, and if you control the process, results like Saturday’s will come without asking,” Vila argues, before pointing to how even Pogačar has had to regroup and rethink his approach to take the next step forward.
“A rider has been stronger than us this July, but you accept it, and Remco’s progress in the last two or three months in particular has been notable regardless. He’s made a lot of changes and they have brought us to the best ever Remco, and from here who knows what the limit will be?
“I remember Tadej won two or three Tours then had a bit of a setback” – losing the 2022 and 2023 Tours after winning in 2020 and 2021 – “and he had to reinvent himself, he came back even stronger. Let’s see if Remco can do that as well.”
The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.