Interest has been drumming up for Thursday's Trofeo Sel Salines, with the unusual change to a team time trial instead of a road race, incentivising several teams to bring top riders as a key testing opportunity for this year's Tour de France, which opens with a 19km TTT in Barcelona.
Remco Evenepoel is there with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, and UAE Team Emirates-XRG have brought many of the riders who could support Tadej Pogačar in July. So it begs the question, why isn't every top WorldTour team starting in the Challenge Mallorca race?
Visma-Lease a Bike are the most notable absentee, as one of the most thorough teams when it comes to performance and equipment testing, but with altitude camps to fit in and other opportunities to test TTT setups later in the season, they've given it a miss.
"The date and time didn’t work out well for us, because it’s so early in the season," explained Visma's Head of Racing, Grischa Niermann, to Wielerflits.
"This year we will again be going on an altitude training camp in February with a group of riders, instead of racing. The team time trial is a good move by the Challenge Mallorca, but unfortunately, we won’t be there."
Paris-Nice is the obvious next choice to test specifics for the Tour's opening day. The longstanding French one-week race also follows the same new timing format to the Tour – where each rider gets their own individual time and the team's times are stopped by the first rider stopping the line, not the fourth, as has long been the format.
While many of Visma's key Tour riders, such as leader Jonas Vingegaard and climbing domestiques Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson, won't be present in Mallorca or on stage 3 of Paris-Nice, Visma remain confident that prioritising their riders' best preparation remains more important.
"It was also important for us to get the relevant riders there," added Mathieu Heijboer, Head of Coaching at Visma.
"We didn't want to organize all the travel and everything just for that one race. We're confident in our system for team time trials. We trained for that in January. We prioritize our key riders, to give them the best possible preparation now as well."
Even for teams not likely to be among the GC favourites come July, any chance to have a full team time trial practice under racing conditions was worth having. With the discipline, which was once a mainstay at the Grand Tours, falling out of favour with organisers, some of their riders will have barely had the chance to ride a TTT at the highest level.
"It was a smart move from the Mallorca Challenge, putting the team time trial in so it attracts, from their point of view, some big hitters that perhaps wouldn't start their season here or this early," XDS Astana Performance Engineer Alex Dowsett told Cyclingnews in Mallorca.
"It's no secret the team time trial has taken a back step in the recent half decade, and in 2026 it's back to the forefront, given that, stage one [of the Tour de France], the first yellow jersey is decided on a TTT. So there's a huge amount of focus on it again this year.
"Mallorca Challenge putting it in gave teams an opportunity to go to a dress rehearsal, numbers on the back, and simulate a race day in a racing environment.
"There are some big hitters here, the biggest hitters; Remco, who's here with the Red Bull team. And I think there's a lot of fascination about what will happen there, with them… well, with him, and they're making a lot of noise, and it's exciting to watch."
Evenepoel will be joined by his planned co-leader for the Tour, Florian Lipowitz, in Thursday's race, as they look to start their partnership off with a bang. The German team has aerodynamics expert Dan Bigham as their Head of Engineering, so this is a big day to get some answers, which could result in a yellow jersey in seven months.
"Just before the start of a TTT, you don’t really have time to think about how hard it’s going to be – and that might even be an advantage. Preparation is the key, and we’ve invested a lot of time. I think we’re well prepared," said Lipowitz.
"Thursday is an important day, but not the most important one of the season. It’s no secret that we’re here to prepare for the Tour de France. If we can draw the right conclusions for July, it’s okay to make mistakes now. At this stage, it doesn’t have to be perfect," added Evenepoel.
Red Bull did have the advantage of Mallorca being their base for much of December and January, while many teams – Visma included – opt for the Costa Blanca in mainland Spain instead.
When the Tour's opening stage rolls around, it will be five kilometres shorter and significantly hillier than the test in Mallorca, but if Red Bull get it right and Evenepoel ends up in yellow on July 4, they will be thankful for the time they invested in this January race.
