Developing a Tour de France winner in five years: Inside Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s new U23 project

Exclusive interview with Director of Development John Wakefield

South African John Wakefield is leading the way as Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe build a U23 team for 2025.

Since the first mention of Red Bull’s involvement at WorldTour level cycling, speculation has fixated on which global stars could or would join the latest super team on the block. 

Remco Evenepoel, Tom Pidcock, Wout van Aert and a host of other names were linked to the team once Red Bull officially joined forces with Bora-Hansgrohe in June but while headlines focused on WorldTour transfers,  the Director of Development, John Wakefield, and his staff have been putting together what they believe will be one of the most competitive U23 programmes in the world. Forget trying to buy the best talent, Wakefield and his team want to develop it.

The goals are simple, and ambitious, to provide a future Tour de France winner in the next five years and grow a crop of riders that will one day dominate the men’s WorldTour.