Team time trial victory on day 1 with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe clearly wasn’t enough for Remco Evenepoel.
On Friday, Evenepoel won Mallorca’s Trofeo Serra Tramuntana all by himself after spending 50km off the front, alone.
Evenepoel’s first road racing victory for his new squad was quite the statement as he got the wheels turning on the new chapter of his superstar career.
A massive super team makeover in the winter after his multi-million exit from Quick-Step clearly did him no harm at all.
His Tour de France rivals Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard should consider themselves warned.
“It’s always good to win early after training for a few months,” Evenepoel told Cycling Pro Net at the finish. “I always like to win early in the season to feel good in the season.”
Friday’s victory was Evenpoel’s first on the road bike since last September at the Tour of Britain. His European and world time trial titles arrived after that.
“After last year, it’s good to win a road race – it took me quite some time,” Evenepoel said at the finish on Friday. “I’m happy I can open the account – it shows we did some good work in the winter.”
A new downhill move for Evenepoel
And like it was a new jersey for Evenepoel on Friday, the victory was a new twist on “The Remco Winning Formula.”
Belgium’s aero bullet attacked out of a Red Bull train on the climb of the Coll de Soler at 56km to go and dropped the two riders suffering on his wheel on the descent. It was a display of newfound bike handling panache.
And once Evenepoel hit the 30+ kilometer valley toward the final climb of the race, it was game over.
The world and Olympic TT champion rolled a huge single chainring and slumped into a newly refined bike fit to pull a monster 90-second lead within the space of a few minutes.
He hit the base of the final climb of the day at 10km to go with a two-minute lead and still looked rock-solid and immaculate. The short descent to the finish in Lluc was a formality.
Behind Evenepoel, UAE Emirates’ young gun António Morgado outsprinted Christian Scaroni of XDS-Astana for second as they both continued their standout starts to 2026. Morgado won Trofeo Calvià earlier this week, while Scaroni claimed the Classica Camp de Morvedre the week before.
No Lipowitz, no problem for Evenepoel and Red Bull
Florian Lipowitz, Evenepoel’s co-leader for the Tour de France, did not race Friday after the German made his season debut Thursday.
And likewise, while Red Bull sent a stacked squad into Thursday’s TTT as a dress rehearsal for the Tour de France, it scaled back the artillery for Friday’s road race.
But even with a “B-Team,” Red Bull was impressive Friday in the rugged mountains of Mallorca.
The German squad controlled the lower-category race all day, clearly with a mission to launch its new leader into solo orbit.
“It was the plan to split the race there [at the climb]. We wanted to make it hard but didn’t want to take anyone with us, so we needed an explosive attack,” Red Bull DS Oliver Cookson told Cycling Pro Net. “Chapeau to the whole team.
“The way Remco rode was really clever, the way he had the two with him in the original break and dropped them on the descent,” Cookson said.
“Chapeau to Remco, it was a beautiful win.”
For both Evenepoel and his team, Friday’s Trofeo Serra Tramuntana was a crucial mojo boost after a winter of overhaul. The team shook up its whole staffing structure as it transformed itself for its new chapter.
“What a day for the team, and for Remco,” Cookson smiled.
Evenepoel and Co. now have to carry those good vibes all through to July and the grand départ, where the true big beasts of bike racing await.
Evenepoel races again Saturday at the Trofeo Andratx-Pollença in the next instalment of the Mallorca Challenge. His new sidekick Lipowitz is also scheduled to be racing Saturday.
Source URL: https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/evenepoel-solo-raid-mallorca/