Patrick Lefevere has indicated that Remco Evenepoel may make his debut at Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders subsequent season as he seeks to reboot Soudal-QuickStep’s Classics unit.
Evenepoel’s victories at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2022 and 2023 had salvaged the staff’s final two Classics campaigns, however the Belgian missed this 12 months’s version of the race after breaking his collarbone in a crash at Itzulia Basque Nation.
The staff’s struggles on this 12 months’s Classics marketing campaign have been once more significantly evident on the cobbles, the place they did not make an affect on the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. Yves Lampaert was Soudal-QuickStep’s greatest finisher at every race, inserting 18th on the Ronde and thirty sixth in Roubaix.
In an interview with La Dernière Heure, Lefevere acknowledged the necessity to revamp his cobbled Classics staff for 2025.
“If somebody of the extent of Mathieu van der Poel, Tadej Pogaçar and Wout van Aert, who is out there and financially viable, then I’m ,” stated Lefevere, earlier than acknowledging that he may attain for an in-house resolution to the issue.
“However on the finish of the 12 months, along with Remco, we’re going to see if there’s not a risk of doing Milan-San Remo after which going to the Tour of Flanders with a really particular programme.
“Then he can relaxation so he can soak up Liège-Bastogne-Liège and after that the Tour. I feel Remco is a little bit of a Flandrien all the identical. He generally trains on these roads. I am positive he needs to trip the Ronde someday.”
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The contracts of Soudal-QuickStep’s leaders on the cobbles this Spring – Lampaert, Kasper Asgreen and Julian Alaphilippe – are all set to run out on the finish of the season. Lefevere admitted that he “couldn’t be blissful” with the staff’s efficiency within the Classics.
“I don’t wish to search for excuses, even when Julian, who was going nicely, couldn’t specific all his high quality as a result of he rode a whole lot of races with a small fracture,” Lefevere stated. “However perhaps our potential is not on the identical stage as our expectations.”
Lefevere has already dominated out signing Jasper Philipsen for 2025, citing budgetary constraints, and he acknowledged that the DNA of his staff had modified barely because it shifted its focus to Evenepoel’s Grand Tour ambitions.
“Clearly, it’s modified a bit as a result of we’re constructing a staff to assist Remco on the Tour,” Lefevere stated. “I’d love us to be dominant on all terrains, however we don’t have the funds of UAE Group Emirates.”
Lefevere expressed confidence that Evenepoel’s preparations for his Tour de France debut wouldn’t be impeded unduly by the point off the bike since his Itzulia crash.
“I am satisfied of it: Remco will likely be prepared for the Tour,” Lefevere stated. “In 10 days, he’ll be off to Sierra Nevada for a coaching camp at altitude. He is very relaxed as a result of he is aware of that it is solely April 21, and that he is nonetheless obtained loads of time forward of him.”
