Remco Evenepoel has said his team, Soudal-QuickStep, needs to up its game across several areas if he is to compete to win the Tour de France. But he added the recruitment of a soigneur from Ineos Grenadiers had already enabled it to learn some of the British team's "secrets".
The Belgian rider, who won the TT at the recent UCI World Road Championships, has had to address constant speculation that he is set to break his current contract - which runs for three more seasons - to join Ineos Grenadiers.
In recent weeks he described the rumours as "small bullshit" that was doing the rounds. However, when his father, Patrick Evenepoel, said in a media interview last week he was speaking to several World Tour teams about his son's future, and had solid offers from some, that only served add fuel to the flames.
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Indeed, Soudal QuickStep boss Patrick Lefevere responded to Evenepoel Snr's comments by saying if a contract was broken, the parties involved could face legal action, adding any such development would be a disaster for his team. After that exchange of comments, via the media, between his father and his team boss, Evenepoel Jnr called for both to be calm.
But now, in an interview with the Lantern Rouge podcast, Evenepoel has said he would "normally" see out his contract with Soudal-QuickStep, before adding the team must improve its approach in many areas if it wanted him to try and win the Tour. However, he also said the team had recruited a soigneur from Ineos Grenadiers, which resulted in the unlocking of knowledge about what the British team was doing.
“I have a contract to the end ’26, so there’s this respectful thing; a contract is a contract, you can’t just say ‘ah, see you, bye, bye, you know’. It’s not how it goes. And the cycling world is not the football world where you can give 200 millions and get the player or the rider.
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“But I think if we can just improve a lot of things... science, nutrition; just things around the Grand Tour team, I think that we can quickly be on the same level as the UAE, Jumbos. We have a lot of knowledge in the team, especially us, the riders - we know a lot (about) how the others work because there’s almost no secrets anymore in the bunch.
“We have a soigneur coming from Ineos and he just gave us all the secrets, that’s how it goes. What’s in the feed bag, the bidons, how to make the rice cakes, which is a big difference from what it was last year with us. All those small things can just really help us get to the top level.
"I believe that we really can… I think we just need to improve the level. still a bit, of the Grand Tour team. If there’s competition between the domestiques, the level will go up... that's how it should be."
While Soudal QuickStep has just signed Mikel Landa for next year, to work for Evenepoel, he said the team needed to bring in more very high level domestiques for Grand Tours so they would effectively push each other on and riders would not become "too relaxed" about being assured a place in the Grand Tour selections.
Evenepoel also confirmed the team had tried to sign other "big names" - including Pavel Sivakov and Laurens De Plus - but "it didn't work out so I was disappointed... because if you have those two you can go to war, especially on the climbs". However, Landa was "a very big name" and knew how to ride, and win, Grand Tours as he had ridden for Chris Froome in the past.
Evenepoel added he also believed two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe could be a very valuable deluxe domestique, though he also said the Frenchman could still be "in the top ten climbers in the world” on his day, while Kasper Asgreen was a very big asset on the flat.
