Pieter Serry sees hope for everyone in Patrick Lefevere's 'shelter team': "If that scenario were true, then everyone can be cruelly grateful to Patrick again"

It has not yet been confirmed, but this morning Het Laatste Nieuws reported that Patrick Lefevere is working on a restart of the current Soudal Quick-Step. The riders who cannot join the merger team of Soudal Quick-Step and Jumbo-Visma could still be accommodated by this 'shelter team'.

"If that scenario were true, then everyone can be cruelly grateful to Patrick again," Pieter Serry has now responded to Het Nieuwsblad.

"The team would continue to exist, the staff could continue to do their jobs. Because it is also late in the season for them to look for another team," said the 34-year-old rider, who has been riding for Patrick Lefevere's team since 2013. "This news is a bright spot for us, but as long as there is no official confirmation from Patrick, it will remain nothing more than a bright spot."

Dries Devenyns' career is over after the Gran Piemonte, but he sympathizes with his teammates and the staff members of the current Soudal Quick-Step. "I feel a certain resignation among my teammates," he says. "That feeling of uncertainty is not fun for anyone. I experience that last twist – possibly a slimmed-down team – as positive. A slimmed-down team is better than nothing."