‘I wanted to get out of my comfort zone’ – fast-rising young French racer Kévin Vauquelin signs for Ineos Grenadiers

Fast-rising young French racer Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) has confirmed long-established rumours that he will be riding with Ineos Grenadiers next year.

A stage winner in the Tour de France in 2024 when he soloed away in the closing kilometres of stage 2 to Bologna, Vauquelin has signed with the British WorldTour team for three seasons, until 2028.

He is the second French rider to join the team, after it was announced earlier this year that current National Champion and one-day specialist Dorion Godon was joining from Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale.

Whilst the decision was made in April, Vauquelin apparently opted not to reveal his new squad until October, out of respect for his current team, Arkéa-B&B Hotels. The French team are currently fighting an increasingly desperate battle for survival after losing its sponsors for next season.

“That was relatively early in the season,” Vauquelin, 24, told L’Equipe in an interview published on Friday. “Because I didn’t want to be thinking about it. I just wanted to concentrate on my performances, and that worked out well.

“I had other options, so I had to weigh up the pros and cons, but in the same way that signing for Arkéa was instinctive, I had the same feeling about Ineos.

“I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, not just stay in France and discover other things, a different culture. I listened to what they had in mind, but above all, it was them who listened to what I had to say.”

Apart from his Tour stage win, the 24-year-old has also taken second overall in the 2025 Tour de Suisse after a stubborn defence of the lead against eventual winner João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). He then turned heads in France this summer with his unexpectedly strong GC performance at the Tour, finishing seventh overall in just his second-ever participation.

However, Vauquelin’s versatility as a racer stretches well beyond stage racing, as proven by back-to-back runners-up spots at La Flèche Wallonne in 2024 and 2025, second in the National Road Championships last year and promising performances in multiple minor one-day races both in France and further afield.

Vauqelin added that Ineos’ past connections with the track – thanks to Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas – had added to its appeal when it came to signing, given he had performed well in the same speciality as a young racer. The squad’s past considerable success in Grand Tours and in stage racing across the board also attracted him.

His future role in Ineos, he told L’Equipe, was “to be a leader and to be a name, by which I mean to be in a situation where there are several of us in a position to fight for the win.

“Some Ineos riders were aware I’d signed, already, and some, in certain moments, even gave me a hand in the Tour de Suisse.

“In the short term, we’ll work on week-long stage races, and then in the long term, we’ll see what we can do in the Grand Tours. I’m going to race without any pressure. After the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de France this year, that makes me calmer and more ambitious.”

Vauquelin said that he did not have a problem going from a team where he was often the sole leader to a squad where there were plenty of options in that respect.

“If you have a rider like [Filippo] Ganna who’s considerably stronger in the time trials, that’s also a way for me to try and move up a level,” he explained to L’Equipe.

“It’s like when I turned pro in Arkea, I was in the middle of the field, and then when I saw riders were better than me, it made me keener to train and to overtake them.”