'We want to win a lot more bike races' - says Performance Director Scott Drawer
The 2025 Ineos Grenadiers team leaders(Image credit: Ineos Grenadiers)
Ineos Grenadiers have confirmed that the team will exist beyond the 2025 season, with hopes that a second title sponsor will boost the budget in the years to come and help them once again compete with the biggest and best teams in the sport.
There have been unfounded suggestions that Ineos and team owner Jim Ratcliffe could have somehow become disenchanted with the team after they failed to compete at the highest level. He has also invested significantly in the Manchester United football team and in other sports.
However, it appears Ratcliffe has committed to the long-term future of the Ineos Grenadiers team.
"I can confirm that the team will exist into the next (2026-2028 WorldTour) cycle," John Allert, the Ineos Grenadiers CEO said, when Cyclingnews asked about the team's future during a media video call with team management.
"We are very lucky to have owners that are very passionate about this sport, that are personally involved in the sport and they get on a bike. They've had numerous opportunities if they didn't want to be in the sport, to make that clear but they do want to be in the sport."
Allert revealed that the team has appointed an external agency to search for a major title sponsor. This could allow Ineos to maintain its annual investment but allow the team to keep or grow on its reported fifty million Euro budget.
"It's fair to say that Ineos don't want to spend more money," Allert admitted.
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"So it depends entirely on what happens with this commercial activity. They very clearly do want us to be a super team and they know what it takes to be a super team. I'm not going to put a number on that, but it's a number that's greater than what we're currently spending.
"You don't need to be that clued-up to realize there's a reason why we're trying to bring other people on that journey with us. There's value to be created for other brands and we don't necessarily feel we have to, need to, or want to, go it alone.
"I've heard some bonkers rumours in the last couple of weeks about people buying us or investing in us or whatever else.
"We certainly have a commercial strategy that is an evolution of our strategy. We've appointed an agency and we're looking at commercial partnership opportunities, like most other teams are.
"It's a very crowded market. We haven't signed anybody. I'm not aware of us imminently signing anybody."
It might take one, two, three or four years before we're back, winning a Grand Tour
(Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Ineos Grenadiers slipped to seventh place in the UCI team rankings in 2024 and won just six WorldTour races. They included the Amstel Gold Race with Tom Pidcock but the Yorkshireman has left for Q36.5 after a drawn-out dispute with the team. Filippo Ganna, Josh Tarling, Carlos Rodríguez, Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas remain as team leaders but the Welshman will retire at the end of 2025.
Ineos Grenadiers have not won the Tour de France since 2019, with UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease a Bike taking their once dominant role in the sport's biggest race.
Scott Drawer begins his second year as Performance Director, with Zak Dempster and Kurt Arvesen now lead directeur sportifs after Steve Cummings quit to join Jayco AlUla.
Their task is to reboot Ineos Grenadiers.
"We need to come back and win bike races, start to win stages. Every race counts," Arvesen said simply.
"It might take one, two, three or four years before we're back, winning a Grand Tour, but I'm convinced we're going to be.
"There are only three Grand Tours, there's only only three winners, so it's very difficult."
Drawer has shaken up the Ineos Grenadiers performance team of coaches and expert staff during 2024, bringing in a number of non-cycling specialists.
Ineos Grenadiers don't have an Under 23 development team but have created links with the Lotto Kern-Haus PSD Bank Continental team to help develop some of their young riders and future talents. Drawer has created three performance streams within Ineos Grenadiers that focus on Grand Tours, one-day Classics and Performance Races.
"We want to win a lot more bike races, first and foremost. And we want to be competing for Grand Tours and chasing podiums," Drawer said.
"We have those expectations. So whatever we do, we want to be a lot better than last year."
Drawer highlighted how the sport has changed in recent years due to the arrival of Tadej Pogačar and other talented young riders, the growth of the big-budget super teams and even new performance science such as the ability to ingest more carbohydrates during races and so race longer and harder.
"Some of the most critical things that have probably shaped why we've reshaped ourselves are based on the changes that have really happened in the sport," Drawer said.
"I think the trends in racing (style), particularly pre and post-COVID have changed the nature of the type of cyclists that are now in the peloton. So we've restructured ourselves and set ourselves up to get ahead of that slightly for this year and for the future.
"Our motivation in our approach to racing is going to be very different, and then there will be a bigger investment in talent.
"It's probably one that we've got behind the curve on, but one that we're really accelerating to get ahead of the curveball.
"You've heard some news, and there'll be a lot more news coming out around our importance in that space."
Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
