INEOS Grenadiers have "moved past the days of marginal gains" according to CEO: “We’re looking for maximal gains”

After their years of domination during the 2010s, it's now three years since the INEOS Grenadiers last won a Grand Tour (Egan Bernal Giro d'Italia 2021 ed.). In their quest to return to the top, the team have brought in John Allert as their new CEO.

During their days of dominance with Grand Tour wins through the likes of Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, Egan Bernal and Tao Geoghegan Hart, the team were famous for their approach to the sport and their quest for marginal gains. According to Allert however, the time might have come for a change in approach. “We’ve probably moved past the days of marginal gains," Allert tells GCN. “We’re looking for maximal gains.”

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“My role is very clear. I’m accountable to the owners for everything that happens in this team,” Allert explains. "I don’t come from a performance background, which is why we have people who have deep skills and great experience in that area, but ultimately it’s my job with the senior management team to set the strategy, take that to the owners, they then endorse and mandate us to execute that strategy, and I’m then accountable for the results that come from that.”

So far in 2024, the team have 7 wins to their name, including at Amstel Gold Race through Tom Pidcock, overall victory at the Tour de Romandie with Carlos Rodriguez and most recently, the opening stage of the 2024 Giro d'Italia with Jhonatan Narvaez. “What we’ve understood better over the past few months is the need to be far more strategically efficient around what we’re trying to achieve, and far more aggressive in our use of data and R&D partnerships to progress what we’re doing, not just with our athletes but with our equipment. Our partners are readily embracing that challenge," Allert says. “There’s no silver bullet, no single answer. We’ve probably moved past the days of marginal gains. We’re looking for maximal gains, which are pretty hard to achieve, but the only way to achieve them is through being disruptive and innovative.”

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The holy grail for the team remains the Tour de France however. “There’s no one in this sport, certainly not in our team, who doesn’t want to win the Tour de France. We’ve had unmatched success in that objective in the past 15 years, and it’s not an objective that ever went away,” Allert admits. “I guess if anything people saw us doing other things, thinking it meant less to us, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Every single person in the team is determined to win the Tour. We’re not bashful in stating that as our key objective.”

“This is a team where there’s no arrogance, there’s a lot of humility, and a lot of hard work and dedication to making sure we get back to the top step,” Allert concludes. “It’s only hard work and innovation that’s going to do that.”

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