“For sure, I think everything is possible”: Q36.5 confident Tom Pidcock and Sam Bennett can thrive together

Sam Bennett's transfer to Q36.5 has been one of the main stories of the offseason. The veteran Irish rider, after spending two seasons with Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team, has switched teams and will represent the Swiss Pinarello - Q36.5 Pro Cycling in 2026, with renewed ambitions of riding the Tour de France.

However, questions about how the Irish sprinter might fit into a Grand Tour lineup alongside Tom Pidcock, who is expected to keep focusing on the GC, have quickly arisen. According to Sports Director Kurt Bogaerts, the team sees no conflict at all.

“For sure. I think everything is possible,” Bogaerts told Stickybottle when asked if Bennett and Pidcock could both line up at the Tour. “We see how we handled the Vuelta. I think that worked well for Tom and for the other guys. We were not solely focused on the GC or on Tom.”

The Belgian coach emphasized that Pidcock’s needs are clear but manageable. “Tom needs a certain level of support, and what is important for him is the other people share the same ambition. That’s like a dedication and winning and wanting to go for it.”

Bennett’s collaboration with Bogaerts goes back a decade to their years at the An Post-Sean Kelly team, where the sprinter’s talent first emerged and with whom he spent three seasons (2011-2013).

“It’s fantastic to be joining Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team next season. My career was launched by Kurt Bogaerts, so it feels as if I’ve taken a winding path home. As a sprinter, my career has been shaped by hunting for wins and I’ve been really fortunate to have been given lots of great opportunities to perform, and win, at all 3 Grand Tours," Bennett said in a press release the day his signing for the team was announced back in October.

Despite a long and successful professional career in which he has amassed 71 professional wins, Bennett has only ridden the Tour de France four times. His Tour trajectory has been uneven: repeatedly overshadowed at Bora-Hansgrohe due to Peter Sagan’s leadership, sidelined by injury in 2021, and omitted from selections in 2022, 2023 and 2025. His best performance came in 2020, back in his prime days, getting two stage wins and securing the green jersey.

That history makes Bogaerts’ reassurance particularly significant for Bennett. The coach underscored that Q36.5’s ambitions in Grand Tours are broad, not just restricting to one big objective, which gives room to very different types of riders.

“In the Vuelta we went for the sprints on a regular basis with several guys, and we were sprinting top 10. We were going into breakaways. And we didn’t lose one spot into the GC,” he said. “I said this before, we didn’t go with high GC ambitions into the Vuelta, and we will not do that into the future Grand Tours.”

That flexible and opportunistic approach helped Pidcock secure the best GC result of his career so far, as he finished third overall at the 2025 Vuelta a España. It was also one of the best GC results ever for the team.

“We try to come home with something. A podium is amazing,” Bogaerts explained. “The longer the Vuelta went on, we identified that actually the podium was possible. Then we actually focused more on the podium than on a stage with Tom. But I think it doesn’t close any doors.

Bogaerts also described the positive effects of bringing a sprinter. “What is nice when you have a sprinter is that you have ambition every day. You have focus every day; it’s not just concentrating on not losing time. I think it’s a healthy, ambitious focus on a daily basis, that you can have daily goals for different individuals.”

Q36.5 Pro Cycling is currently a ProTour team, which means it has no automatic invitation to any of the Grand Tours. However, strong 2025 results (14 wins overall and great performances at the Vuelta and some classics) and the presence of top-tier riders such as the aforementioned Pidcock, Bennett, Chris Harper and Eddie Dunbar make a wildcard selection increasingly likely.

Bennett's main goal is very clear: to come back to the Tour de France and secure a final stage win. He is 35 years old, so time is ticking and chances are not that many anymore. Securing a spot alongside Pidcock next July could offer the opportunity he has been striving to regain.

Bogaerts, for his part, remains confident that supporting both ambitions is not only possible but beneficial to the entire squad. “For sure I want to try again,” he said of the dual approach. And if Q36.5 makes the Tour roster, both of its stars could finally share the same Grand Tour spotlight.