Patrick Lefevere has indicated that Remco Evenepoel could make his debut at Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders next 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 team’s last two Classics campaigns, but the Belgian missed this year’s edition of the race after breaking his collarbone in a crash at Itzulia Basque Country.
The team’s struggles in this year's Classics campaign were again particularly evident on the cobbles, where they failed to make an impact at the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. Yves Lampaert was Soudal-QuickStep’s best finisher at each race, placing 18th at the Ronde and 36th in Roubaix.
In an interview with La Dernière Heure, Lefevere acknowledged the need to revamp his cobbled Classics team for 2025.
“If you know someone of the level of Mathieu van der Poel, Tadej Pogaçar and Wout van Aert, who is available and financially viable, then I am interested,” said Lefevere, before acknowledging that he might reach for an in-house solution to the problem.
“But at the end of the year, together with Remco, we are going to see if there is not a possibility of doing Milan-San Remo and then going to the Tour of Flanders with a very specific programme.
“Then he can rest so he can take in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and after that the Tour. I think Remco is a bit of a Flandrien all the same. He sometimes trains on those roads. I'm sure he wants to ride the Ronde one day.”
The contracts of Soudal-QuickStep’s leaders on the cobbles this Spring – Lampaert, Kasper Asgreen and Julian Alaphilippe – are all set to expire at the end of the season. Lefevere admitted that he “could not be happy” with the team’s performance in the Classics.
“I don’t want to look for excuses, even if Julian, who was going well, couldn’t express all his quality because he rode a lot of races with a small fracture,” Lefevere said. “But maybe our potential is no longer at the same level as our expectations.”
Lefevere has already ruled out signing Jasper Philipsen for 2025, citing budgetary constraints, and he acknowledged that the DNA of his team had changed slightly as it shifted its focus to Evenepoel’s Grand Tour ambitions.
“Obviously, it’s changed a bit because we’re building a team to support Remco at the Tour,” Lefevere said. “I’d love us to be dominant on all terrains, but we don’t have the budget of UAE Team Emirates.”
Lefevere expressed confidence that Evenepoel’s preparations for his Tour de France debut would not be impeded unduly by the time off the bike since his Itzulia crash.
“I'm convinced of it: Remco will be ready for the Tour,” Lefevere said. “In 10 days, he'll be off to Sierra Nevada for a training camp at altitude. He's very relaxed because he knows that it's only April 21, and that he's still got plenty of time ahead of him.”
