“This wasn’t against Tadej Pogacar, but you still have to do it” – Remco Evenepoel’s Red Bull hat trick silences any doubts after winter

A team time trial victory. Two solo wins. Three race days that were never meant to happen in the original plan. Remco Evenepoel could hardly have scripted a more emphatic first appearance in Red Bull colours at the Challenge Mallorca.

The narrative before the week began was simple. Evenepoel would ride the Trofeo Ses Salines team time trial, log important kilometres with July in mind, and leave the island with a quiet box ticked. Instead, he added two extra one-day races at the last moment and left Mallorca with a hat trick of victories.

For Belgian analyst José De Cauwer, watching from home, the significance went well beyond the results sheet. “This wasn’t against Tadej Pogacar and the others, but you still have to do it. Everyone in the peloton knows what he is going to do, one of those solos, and yet it still happens,” he said in analysis for Sporza.

That line captures the balance perfectly. The level of opposition in January is not the story. The manner of the victories is.

De Cauwer pointed to something more subtle than race results. “He is radiating a lot of confidence. Not only in the race, but also off the bike. The team change to Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe and the way things are done at that team have clearly done him good.”

Evenepoel himself spoke recently about how “150 staff members examine everything down to the smallest detail” within the team structure.

According to De Cauwer, that is exactly the type of environment in which a rider like Evenepoel thrives. “That’s something he feeds off. I can imagine that a rider like him could become discouraged when he saw how certain things were done at the tables of bigger teams. Now he is at one of those teams himself.”

It is a telling observation so early in the season. This was not just Evenepoel winning races. This was Evenepoel looking comfortable, settled, and instinctive in a new environment.

The most striking part of Evenepoel’s Mallorca week was how predictable it all looked. Attacks from distance. Long efforts on rolling terrain. Power sustained on climbs like the Puig Major. It was the familiar Evenepoel blueprint, executed with the same authority.

“Everyone in the peloton knows what he is going to do, and yet it still happens,” De Cauwer repeated.

That matters because it speaks directly to Evenepoel’s winter. De Cauwer believes the foundations have clearly been laid for something bigger.

“Everything may be in place. I won’t say to see the real Remco, because that would do a disservice to all the victories he has already achieved. We sometimes forget that. We still seem to be waiting for a better Remco, as if this version has not already won anything. But we do think there may still be something extra to come.”

From Red Bull’s perspective, Mallorca offered more than three wins. It offered reassurance. The rider around whom major ambitions are being built looks physically sharp and mentally at ease. The early-season plan was adjusted on feel, and it paid off immediately.

The victories did not come against Tour de France rivals. But, as De Cauwer put it, that is beside the point. You still have to do it. And Evenepoel did it three times in four days.

For a team entering a new era and a rider entering a new chapter, the tone could hardly have been set more clearly.