Eight race days, five victories, a perfect team time trial, and a first general classification win in almost two years. Remco Evenepoel could hardly have written himself a better start to his time at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe if he tried, but what does early success mean for the Belgian superstar, who dreams of unseating Tadej Pogačar from cycling's top spot?
Gone are the days of peaking too early in the season – just look at the Slovenian, who has been a perennial winner from season start to end during his career – so it won't be timing that Evenepoel fears for the Tour de France. But he knows all too well that the gap from Pogačar to everyone else the past two years has grown to become colossal.
Joining Red Bull is a huge factor in the expectation that Evenepoel is the man to challenge the likely second-best rider of all time (for the moment), with their bigger budget and greater focus on innovation pointing to areas for dramatic improvement.
After all, Pogačar himself reached a new level in 2024 after changing coach and some of his training methods. His season that year started similarly to 2026 Evenepoel, with six wins coming from nine days of racing – at more prestigious events, albeit – and his form holding through to the Classics, Giro d'Italia and then his first yellow jersey triumph at the Tour since 2021.
With Pogačar's winning margin in July ballooning to 6:17 in 2024 and 4:24 last year, that gap being from Jonas Vingegaard, Evenepoel will need to make a similar jump in form to that which he made when he burst onto the scene as one of the best juniors we've ever seen.
It's far from a given that wins in Mallorca and Valenciana do mean Evenepoel has improved already, but if you want to compete with the current Pogačar, winning and winning comfortably at almost every appointment on your schedule is the absolute best you can do.
Vingegaard had begun to do just that in 2024 as he dominated O Gran Camiño and Tirreno-Adriatico, but ever since his horror crash at Itzulia Basque Country, the gap between him and the Slovenian has never been more evident.
This is important for Evenepoel too, not just because he also crashed that day in northern Spain, but because of how disrupted he's been the past two seasons. As Pogačar has stormed into a league of his own, the Belgian has been hit twice with brutal injury setbacks.
Now, in the same way an early-season win doesn't buy you anything for July, injury recovery doesn't guarantee a bounceback – some riders never reach previous or new heights after a big crash – but with a now 26-year-old entering the prime of his career, it's fair to assume that there could still be a way to go until his ceiling is reached.
His next tests
Evenepoel will be buoyed by the rider he beat to the GC title in Valenciana, being UAE's João Almeida, with many of his key battles before taking on Pogačar set to be against his lieutenants, the next of which will be Isaac del Toro at the UAE Tour.
Heading back to the race he won in 2023, Evenepoel will be eyeing a dominant performance against the Mexican, who is set to make his Tour debut in 2026 to support Pogačar.
Anything but victory against him would settle any worries that UAE might have, though Pogačar himself probably isn't having them in truth. His season starts at Strade Bianche on March 7, anything but him kicking off where he ended last season, on top, being a surprise.
Evenepoel will head to Abu Dhabi on Friday without an altitude camp in his legs, though, and with weight still to lose before finding his maximum capacity, the result won't be the be-all end-all, but as already stated, winning as often as Pogačar does is the only standard to follow now.
He unfortunately won't have the benchmark of Vingegaard to compare himself to, after Visma had to pull their planned leader from the race due to a recent training crash and illness, but UAE will be going all out to win their home race, so the competition will be more than worthy.
That duel will come at the Volta a Catalunya in March, though, by which point Evenepoel will have been to Mount Teide with his team to try and build on his flying start. The start list there will be stacked too, with the likes of Almeida and Tom Pidcock to Evenepoel's co-leader for July, Florian Lipowitz – it will be the perfect place to make a statement.
Evenepoel's wins so far haven't been quite as dominant as the Slovenian's, with two of his three solo attacks ending in winning margins under 25 seconds, but it was his explosivity that was the important thing to note on this occasion.
The Belgian has always been able to stay away once he gets there – no surprise for a three-time and current time trial world champion – but he has lacked a violent punch to stay with Pogačar on occasion, so early signs of that improving show what Red Bull has been working on.
Evenepoel's decision to join Red Bull has been vindicated, but he'll desperately want to put any UAE jersey he comes across before the Ardennes in the rearview mirror and beyond, because when he arrives at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, he'll come face to face with the world champion.
It's a long way to go until that duel, but everything is on track for Evenepoel at the moment. Whether that's because he's been revitalised by a change of team, having an injury-free winter, or simply because at 26 he's approaching his peak, it doesn't particularly matter. What does is whether he can make the necessary step to take down cycling's dictator, and the signs are saying that he can.
