"When he enters a room, you feel it – he has a unique charisma that draws people in": INEOS youngster hails returning leader as key to British WorldTour team’s resurgence

For a development rider just beginning his journey inside one of cycling’s most scrutinised teams, the moment that often defines belief is not a result, but presence. For Davide Frigo, that moment came with the return of Dave Brailsford to day-to-day involvement at INEOS Grenadiers.

“He has a very strong personality. When he enters a room, you feel it, you notice it,” Frigo said in conversation with Bici.Pro. “Not because he does it on purpose, but because he has a unique charisma that draws people in. He took charge of the team and said that within three or four years, they want to return to the levels that a team like ours should be at.”

Those words carry weight not because of who said them, but because of where Frigo now finds himself.

The Italian teenager is part of the first intake of the INEOS Grenadiers Racing Academy, the long-awaited in-house development structure designed to reconnect the World Tour squad with its future.

For years, INEOS operated without a fully internal development team, relying instead on external partnerships and selective recruitment. The Racing Academy marks a clear shift. Twelve riders from across multiple continents form the initial roster, with a deliberate blend of nationalities, backgrounds and racing profiles. Frigo is one of two Italians selected.

The scale of the operation was immediately striking. “The first training camp was something enormous,” he said. “I came from a junior team with four or five staff members. At the first camp in December, there were more than one hundred people.”

That sense of scale is paired with meticulous attention to detail. Frigo recalls a moment that encapsulated the culture he has stepped into. After flagging an error in the sizing of his off-bike clothing, the issue was quietly resolved before the next camp even began. “I arrived and found a box with the correct clothes waiting outside my room. I thought: here, nothing is left to chance.”

The Academy operates alongside the World Tour squad without blurring the lines. Training takes place in the same locations, but sessions remain separate, reinforcing a clear development pathway rather than immediate promotion. “There are also riders from the World Tour team here, but we train separately,” Frigo explained. “It happened a couple of times in December that we rode together, but otherwise the activities remain divided.”

For Frigo, adapting to such an international environment has been part of the learning curve. “Every person has a role and a task. There are so many of us, but nobody is standing still,” he said, noting that improving his English has become part of daily life. Support from familiar faces has helped, particularly from Dario Cioni, who acts as his reference director.

Despite joining one of the sport’s most ambitious projects, Frigo’s short-term path is deliberately measured. He is still completing his studies and will balance racing with finishing school until the summer. “The team is very happy that I haven’t dropped my studies, and they support me in this,” he said. “They told me not to worry and that until I’ve finished my exams, we will use the opportunities available.”

That means missing races such as the Giro Next Gen, but Frigo remains focused on what lies ahead. With the Tour de l’Avenir now open to development teams, it represents a clear medium-term objective.

Within that structure, Brailsford’s renewed presence is viewed not as nostalgia, but as intent. His return at the back end of 2025 was widely seen as a reset moment for the British team, a reconnection with the standards and clarity that underpinned the most successful era of Team Sky and early INEOS.

For riders inside the system, the message appears to have landed. Frigo’s description of Brailsford’s impact speaks to more than reputation. It reflects a wider belief that the Racing Academy is not an accessory project, but a central pillar of INEOS’s attempt to rebuild from the ground up.

For a rider taking his first steps in professional cycling, that clarity matters. “Everything happened very quickly,” Frigo admitted. “Now I’m here and I want to do my best to stay here and enjoy it as much as possible.”

In a team intent on shaping its future, voices like his offer a revealing glimpse of how that future is being built.