ANALYSIS | 4 years in the making: Why now is the right time for Remco Evenepoel to join Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe

The worst kept secret in cycling is now out in the open. Remco Evenepoel is leaving Soudal – Quick-Step. After years of speculation, denials, and messy media briefings, the Belgian superstar will join Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe in 2026. The announcement comes following Quick-Step’s confirmation that Evenepoel’s contract, originally set to run until the end of 2026, has been broken. It marks the end of one of modern cycling’s longest-running transfer sagas, which in the end became something of a soap opera.

Despite being just 25 years old, Evenepoel has packed his years at Quick-Step with world titles, Grand Tour glory, as well as some career changing injuries. What he has not had, though, is the team to consistently compete with Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard on equal terms. At Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe, that equation finally changes. So, let’s take a closer look at one of the longest transfer sagas in cycling history.

From the moment he turned pro with Soudal – Quick-Step in 2019, Evenepoel was in the spotlight. His rise was emphatic. His first win came that May at the Hammer Stavanger, and within weeks he added the Baloise Belgium Tour, showing that he by no means a failed footballer turned cyclist. Though Quick-Step has long been known for its classic’s expertise rather than Grand Tour ambitions, Evenepoel was changing the team’s identity almost single-handedly. Belgian cycling fans began to get excited.

But as the wins piled up, monuments, Grand Tour stages, the Vuelta, time-trial and road race titles in both Olympic and World Championship colours, the question lingered: could Quick-Step ever build the kind of super-team needed to support him in a three-week battle against the biggest GC names?

The answer was always no.

Even with additions like Mikel Landa and Valentin Paret-Peintre, Quick-Step’s GC squad never reached the depth of UAE or Visma. At UAE, Pogacar is supported by the likes of Almeida, Ayuso, Adam Yates, whilst Vingegaard has Simon Yates, Sepp Kuss, Matteo Jorgenson and Wout van Aert. No other team has that sort of depth, but now BORA seem to have the capacity to create that depth.

In recent years, Quick-Step remained split in its priorities, still focused on sprinters like Tim Merlier while lacking both the climbing domestiques and the budget to back a GC leader properly. Their reported budget sits around €30 million. That’s dwarfed by Visma’s €40+ million and UAE’s €50 million war chest. Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe is now operating in the same financial bracket as the top two as well.

Evenepoel’s transfer had been brewing for years, and it was back in 2021 that BORA’s Ralph Denk first tried to bring him over. At the time, Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere was scrambling to secure a title sponsor. Denk’s interest was public, even offering a five-year deal and attempting to buy the team outright. Lefevere countered by flying to Evenepoel personally, offering his own five-year extension.

At just 21, still recovering from his horror crash at Il Lombardia the year before, Evenepoel chose to stay with his current team. After all, he was still learning the art of being a professional cyclist, and it was not clear yet just how far his talent could go.

He repaid that faith with the 2022 Vuelta win, followed by his world championship triumph just weeks later. But behind the scenes, things were not smooth. Remco and his father Patrick (who manages him) pushed for more GC support, something the team couldn't deliver.

When Evenepoel abandoned the 2023 Giro with illness, cracks began to show. Later that year, at the Vuelta, he was left to fight Visma’s triple threat of Sepp Kuss, Jonas Vingegaard, and Primoz Roglic virtually alone. They had the numbers, he did not. And one bad day on the Tourmalet saw him vanish from GC contention.

And then came the attempted Visma–Quick-Step merger.

The bombshell story emerged after the Vuelta, with Soudal and Evenepoel tipped to join the Dutch powerhouse. “You ride with the Soudal - Quick-Step jersey, but you don't know whether you'll still be wearing that jersey next year,” Evenepoel told Cycling News. “But all's well that ends well.”

The merger collapsed eventually, and so Evenepoel stayed. BORA pivoted to signing Roglic for 2024, while INEOS tried, and failed, to lure Evenepoel as they slid down the WorldTour rankings. That winter, Evenepoel announced his intentions to make his Tour de France debut, meaning we would finally see him fighting Pogacar and Vingegaard. But after his Tourmalet disaster, many fans suggested that he did not have the legs to go toe to toe with the top two.

But 2024 changed everything.

The foundations for this transfer were laid in January 2024. While his team trained in Mallorca, Denk was in America, quietly selling a majority stake of the team to Red Bull. With the energy drink giant’s backing, the team now had both the money and strategic vision to make Evenepoel the centrepiece of a super team. And when Red Bull set their sights on something in sport, they usually tend to get it.

The goal was always clear: Remco, in 2026.

At the Tour de France this summer, Evenepoel finally made his long-awaited debut. He finished third overall, won a stage, and claimed the white jersey, silencing most of his doubters that he had what it takes. Evenepoel did have the support of Mikel Landa that summer, which perhaps convinced him to say at Quick-Step a little while longer. The Belgian went on to make history with two gold medals at the Paris Olympic Games, and his star power then went to new heights.

Then the final fracture hit, Lefevere stepped down as CEO at the end of 2024.

Jorgen Foré took over, but the team’s fate was already sealed. Denk had the money and had the plan. And crucially, he had the patience to get things done behind the scenes, all the while swatting away the media outlets looking for information.

In December, Evenepoel suffered a training crash and spent four months recovering from a shoulder injury. At the 2025 Tour, he abandoned after three disastrous days in the Pyrenees, where he had enjoyed no help from his team in the high mountains. Without the injury, the outcome may have been different, but the deeper issue remained. He simply did not have the team around him.

It had taken nearly five years, but the move was always inevitable. The week after he abandoned the Tour, journalist Daniel Benson confirmed that the signing was as good as done. Yesterday, it finally became official.

But how did Lefevere and Quick-Step take the news?

"Since I stepped down as CEO of Soudal Quick-Step, I’m no longer involved in transfers or any team matters. Agreement-wise, I’m also not allowed to communicate about transfers – not even about Remco," Lefevere wrote on social media. "Please don’t call me. This is the only communication I will make."

In Evenepoel’s home country, the media has been divided on the transfer. Het Nieuwsblad questioned the way the deal was done. “Leaving the team before the end of his contract shows little respect for his employer,” the paper wrote. “Had Evenepoel left his team at the end of 2026, he would have had little to reproach him for. Now, there remains that bitter aftertaste of ingratitude and egocentrism.”

Jan Bakelants, writing in Het Laatste Nieuws, called it “a complex transfer. It’s almost a hostile takeover.”

De Morgen was blunt, “Anyone who leaves the Lefevere team, now the Foré team, usually performs less well… We'll have to wait and see if it benefits him. As a footballer, things went downhill after his transfer.”

The criticism isn’t surprising. Evenepoel has been Belgium’s biggest cycling talent in a generation. To lose him, early and to a German-backed squad, is a national bruise.

Evenepoel won’t arrive alone. According to La Dernière Heure, he’ll be joined by his longtime DS Klaas Lodewyck, a mechanic and a soigneur from Quick-Step. Add to that Sven Vanthourenhout, the architect of his Belgian national team successes, and it’s clear: BORA isn’t just signing a rider, they’re building a program around Evenepoel.

There’s already serious talent on the roster. Primoz Roglic, though 36 by 2026, showed at this year’s Tour that he still has the legs. His third-week breakaway fireworks were some of the most exciting moments in the Alps, and he finished top ten in GC, despite entering the race undercooked from Giro injuries.

Then there’s Florian Lipowitz. After Evenepoel abandoned this year’s Tour, Lipowitz stepped into the void, literally. He claimed third overall and the white jersey and held both to Paris. Routinely the best of the rest behind Pogacar and Vingegaard, he’s BORA’s rising GC force. Jai Hindley, Dani Martinez, and Aleksandr Vlasov round out a stacked lineup of climbing depth.

How Evenepoel and Lipowitz co-exist will be one of the sport’s biggest storylines heading into 2026. Before Evenepoel can take the fight to Pogacar and Vingegaard, he’ll have to prove he’s on top of his new team.

With Pogacar locked in at UAE and Vingegaard still dominating with Visma, there was only one path forward for Evenepoel. To win the Tour, he needed a Tour-winning team, and Quick-Step could never offer that. And after years of loyalty, failed merger talks, and an endless rumour mill, Evenepoel made the call to walk away.

He may be criticized for leaving a year early, but the gap between ambition and reality had grown too wide to ignore. This transfer has been over four years in the making.