“I’m definitely ready for the new season” – Florian Lipowitz begins Tour project alongside Remco Evenepoel in Mallorca

For Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe, the road to July begins quietly, deliberately, and far from the glare of the Tour de France. But make no mistake, the Mallorca Challenge marks the first tangible step in a Tour project that now sits at the heart of the team’s 2026 ambitions. At the centre of it is Florian Lipowitz, lining up alongside Remco Evenepoel for the first time in competitive action.

“I’m definitely ready for the new season,” Lipowitz said ahead of his opener on the island. “I think I had enough of a break to recover and also to process everything that last year brought with it,” he added in comments to SID.

Those words carry weight. Last year, Lipowitz arrived at the Tour de France as a promising talent. He left Paris as the third-placed rider overall and winner of the white jersey, having already underlined his credentials earlier in the season with podium finishes at Paris–Nice and the Criterium du Dauphine.

What follows in 2026 is no longer a discovery phase, but a structured build around responsibility.

Thursday’s Trofeo Ses Salines team time trial offers more than an early-season box tick. The 23.8 km effort serves as an initial rehearsal for the Tour de France Grand Depart in Barcelona, where the race will also open with a team time trial. For Red Bull, it is an opportunity to start translating strategy into practice.

“The team time trial is a major goal for our team with the Tour in mind,” Lipowitz explained. “Of course, expectations are relatively high, but I think we don’t want to take too many risks either. A podium is the minimum the team expects here.”

Those expectations reflect how the internal picture has shifted. Lipowitz is no longer framed as support alone, while Evenepoel arrives as a rider around whom major objectives are openly shaped. Mallorca is not about hierarchy, but about alignment. The emphasis is on how two leaders function together before the pressure truly builds.

Beyond the team time trial, Lipowitz is careful not to overstate his personal goals at this stage. He is expected to start Friday’s Trofeo Serra Tramuntana, but with a different mindset. “For Friday, I haven’t really set myself too many goals. I’ll take that more as a bit of fun,” he said.

The serious work, by his own admission, begins later. February’s Volta ao Algarve and March’s Volta a Catalunya are the races where Lipowitz expects to test himself properly and target podium finishes. That measured approach fits neatly with Red Bull’s broader philosophy for 2026, building progressively rather than peaking too early.

Mallorca, then, is not about results alone. It is about setting the tone for a season in which Lipowitz and Evenepoel are expected to carry shared responsibility at the very top of the sport. For now, the message is simple and controlled. The project has started, and Lipowitz feels ready for what comes next.