{"id":204437,"date":"2025-12-23T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T06:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=204437"},"modified":"2025-12-23T08:36:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T08:36:35","slug":"ineos-grenadiers-resets-by-turning-to-old-friends-brailsford-and-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/12\/23\/ineos-grenadiers-resets-by-turning-to-old-friends-brailsford-and-thomas\/","title":{"rendered":"INEOS Grenadiers Resets by Turning to Old Friends Brailsford and Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Dave Brailsford rejoined INEOS Grenadiers in a prominent, day-to-day role in early July 2025, on the eve of the Tour de France, it signaled that he and the team had had enough of the lack of eye-catching results that had made the INEOS predecessor Team Sky the dominant force in cycling.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Brailsford is back, Thomas too<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Brailsford managed Team Sky since its formation in 2010, and oversaw what had been an unprecedented period of success: seven Tour de France victories between 2012 and 2019 by Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal. In December 2021, Brailsford became Director of Sport at INEOS, overseeing a large number of teams sponsored by the group while remaining team principal of the cycling team, but at a distance. The team\u2019s lack of success over the past several years has moved its CEO, John Allert, and others in the group to bring back Sir David (he was knighted in 2012 for services to cycling and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games) to help return it to its glory days.<\/p>\n

Under his renewed management, INEOS has made a number of other significant staff changes in an effort to close the wide gap to UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG and Visma\u2013Lease a Bike. The most popular one was to hire 2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas as Director of Racing. \u201cGeraint typifies what it means to be a Grenadier. He has lived and breathed elite performance throughout his career. He always set himself very ambitious goals and invariably went on to achieve them,\u201d Brailsford said at the time.<\/p>\n

Speaking in late November on the Watts Occurring<\/em> podcast, which Thomas hosts alongside former pro Luke Rowe, Thomas confirmed, as reported by Cyclingnews, that the team\u2019s major goal was to win the Tour again. “I’m not sure on the time scale, or rather I can’t say. But that’s what made us successful, and meant we could continue at a high level and got a really good sponsor after Sky. So everything leads towards that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the seemingly insoluble problem of beating Tadej Poga\u010dar, Thomas said, “Pog’s not going to be around forever. In two or three years\u2019 time we want to be in a super-strong position where we can challenge for it, Pog or not.”<\/p>\n

\"Geraint<\/a>
After more than 20 years at the top of the sport, Geraint Thomas transitions from the WorldTour peloton into a position focused on shaping the team\u2019s competitive future. \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A new generation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Of course, you can have the most brilliant and experienced managers and sports directors, but it doesn\u2019t mean anything if you don\u2019t have the riders. Though INEOS showed improvement in 2025, with 28 victories, including six Grand Tour stage wins, their roster did not have a rider capable of challenging for a Grand Tour victory, though the courageous Thyman Arensman won two difficult Tour mountain stages. So it was fascinating to watch the team\u2019s moves under its new-old management in the transfer market.<\/p>\n

The most interesting signing so far has been the impressive 24-year-old French rider K\u00e9vin Vauquelin, who won a Tour stage in 2024, finished a hard-fought seventh in the 2025 Tour GC and became available when his former team, Ark\u00e9a\u2013B&B Hotels, failed to find a new sponsor for 2026 and folded. Vauquelin is a talented rider with a huge upside simply because the infrastructure and leadership at INEOS are distinctly superior to what he had been offered with Ark\u00e9a.<\/p>\n

I doubt he will be capable of winning the Tour de France when (if he\u2019s not racing against Poga\u010dar) he\u2019ll be facing the \u201cBaby Pogi,\u201d Isaac del Toro, as well as former INEOS rider Tom Pidcock, who is flourishing at Q36.5 Racing, and Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe). He strikes me more as an eventual Classics rider and Grand Tour stage winner who will be a huge asset to the team.<\/p>\n

For the moment, Vauquelin feels very comfortable with Thomas. \u201cMaybe he recognizes something of himself in me when he was younger, because we’re both good time trialists, and I made my Tour de France debut in a similar way,\u201d Vauquelin said. “And we can agree on our way of thinking and working. It will certainly be a great asset to have such an experienced rider with a great track record and his own unique approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is also optimistic about his ability to win a Grand Tour, even the Tour de France, in the future. “I had to decide what I preferred: going all out to win stages or being very focused for three weeks. For now, I feel like I’m on the right track and I’m aiming for the general classification. Anyway, every rider dreams of winning the Tour de France, so I have to keep going.”<\/p>\n

But just in case, INEOS wants to keep its options open and is apparently negotiating with the exciting young British rider Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL). The often in-the-know commentator Daniel Benson reported Tuesday on his Substack that rider and team are only \u201c24 to 48 hours\u201d from signing. The 23-year-old Onley finished fourth in this year\u2019s Tour, also has a great deal of potential and seems to be a better climber than Vauquelin at this stage. As of this writing, 48 hours later, there has been no announcement by the team.<\/p>\n

As a sign that the new team strategy is looking beyond a near-term Tour victory, INEOS Grenadiers announced Thursday that it has launched a development team for 2026, the INEOS Grenadiers Racing Academy, which will be riding at UCI Continental level. It currently has a squad of 10 riders, including the 22-year-old Josh Charlton, the reigning European and world champion in the individual pursuit in track racing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Dave Brailsford rejoined INEOS Grenadiers in a prominent, day-to-day role in early July 2025, on the eve of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":204440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[4408,4367,7603,8481,3544,3415,8844],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-204437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-dave-brailsford","tag-ineos-grenadiers","tag-isaac-del-toro","tag-kevin-vauquelin","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-thyman-arensman"],"yoast_head":"\nINEOS Grenadiers Resets by Turning to Old Friends Brailsford and Thomas - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When Dave Brailsford rejoined INEOS Grenadiers in a prominent, day-to-day role in early July 2025, on the eve of the Tour de France, it signaled that he\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/12\/23\/ineos-grenadiers-resets-by-turning-to-old-friends-brailsford-and-thomas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"INEOS Grenadiers Resets by Turning to Old Friends Brailsford and Thomas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Dave Brailsford rejoined INEOS Grenadiers in a prominent, day-to-day role in early July 2025, on the eve of the Tour de France, it signaled that he\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/12\/23\/ineos-grenadiers-resets-by-turning-to-old-friends-brailsford-and-thomas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-23T06:00:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-23T08:36:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2025\/12\/INEOS-Grenadiers-profimedia-1040427534-CVR.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"990\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"660\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"tereza\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Siegfried Mortkowitz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/12\/23\/ineos-grenadiers-resets-by-turning-to-old-friends-brailsford-and-thomas\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/12\/23\/ineos-grenadiers-resets-by-turning-to-old-friends-brailsford-and-thomas\/\",\"name\":\"INEOS Grenadiers Resets by Turning to Old Friends Brailsford and Thomas - 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