Carlos Rodriguez reportedly set to lead the INEOS Grenadiers' 2025 Tour de France challenge

The 2025 season continues to take shape for INEOS Grenadiers. After news broke that both Egan Bernal and Joshua Tarling are heading for the Giro d'Italia next year, now it is being reported than Spanish talent Carlos Rodriguez will once again lead the British team's charge at the Tour de France.

The news has been reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport, through the respected journalist Ciro Scognamiglio. Rodriguez will once again be the INEOS Grenadiers' big general classification hope at the 2025 Tour de France, just as he has been the past couple of seasons. "After his 5th place at the Tour de France 2023 and 7th in 2024, Spanish Carlos Rodriguez of INEOS Grenadiers will target also in 2025 the French race, sources confirmed to us," writes Scognamiglio on his official X account. 

The 23-year-old Rodriguez (24 by the time the 2025 Tour de France arrives ed.) will be hoping his performances at the Tour next year are slightly more reminiscent of his standout 2023 effort than the quieter 2024 performance. Although it is true that he finished inside the Top 10 of the general classification for the second straight year, before the Tour the goal was to fight for the podium, or at least improve on his 5th place in 2023, when he also managed to take a stage victory.

On the high mountain days he was not quite at the level required, and as such failed to take that next step in 2024. Also key was the fact that he had no reliable mountain domestiques during the 3 weeks, and that he always had to fight completely alone against the best in the world (Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel...).

Even so, INEOS Grenadiers are giving the Spaniard their full confidence with this decision for 2025, and all fans hope to see a version of Carlos Rodriguez that is closer to the one of two years ago than the one of this past season.