Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Confirm A Lipowitz-Led 2026 Critérium du Dauphiné Squad As Evenepoel Skips The Race For An Isolated Altitude Block
Twenty-four days from the closing Sunday 7 June Voiron-Voreppe Grand Départ, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe have closed out their seven-rider lineup for the 2026 Critérium du Dauphiné, with Florian Lipowitz taking sole GC leadership in the absence of teammate Remco Evenepoel. The German confirms his pre-Tour build alongside Aleksandr Vlasov, Jai Hindley, Niklas Märkl, Maximilian Schachmann, Ryan Mullen and Frederik Wandahl.
It is the deepest mountain card Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe have ever taken to the Dauphiné and reflects the squad's new dual-leadership architecture for the post-Roglič era. Evenepoel's absence had been signalled by management at the start of the season — the Belgian, riding for the team in his first full season since the Soudal Quick-Step move, will prepare for the Tour de France through an isolated three-week altitude block in the Sierra Nevada, mirroring the model Tadej Pogačar has used to such effect through Andorra. The team's sporting director Rolf Aldag confirmed at the team's December media day that the Tour build for Evenepoel would intentionally bypass the traditional Dauphiné-Suisse pre-Tour window in favour of unraced kilometres at altitude.
That hands Lipowitz a deliberately constructed proving ground. The twenty-five-year-old climber finished a remarkable third in his Tour de France debut last July and arrives at the Dauphiné with the broader cycling world watching for the level he can hold over a hard eight-day mountain race. Bookmakers list Lipowitz at 7/1 GC outright behind Del Toro at 5/2 and the absent Evenepoel implicitly above him on form. It is the cleanest pre-Tour solo-leadership card the squad have been able to table since Wilco Kelderman's brief leadership window in 2022.
The supporting cast is genuinely strong. Vlasov returns from a Tirreno-Adriatico kidney infection that derailed his Giro d'Italia plans, and the Russian's form curve since his March return suggests a mountain card that will hold its own on the closing Stage 6 Mont du Chat and Stage 7 La Plagne summit-finishes. Hindley, the 2022 Giro winner, formally pivots out of his post-Giro recovery onto a Tour build of his own, and Märkl — one of the breakthrough riders of the 2025 spring — will carry the squad's breakaway and punchy-stage card across the opening week.
Mullen and Schachmann handle the lead-out and the flat days, while Wandahl rounds out the squad as the breakaway specialist for the closing transitional stages into the Alps. The squad's combined stage-and-jersey probability across the closing eight-day reference reads at 41% on the implied pre-race market — the cleanest pre-Tour output the team have produced since the 2023 Roglič-led Dauphiné build.
Lipowitz himself has been careful to manage expectations. "I am not coming here to win the Dauphiné," he told German national broadcaster ARD in a pre-race interview from the team's pre-camp in the Massif des Bauges. "I am coming here to ride the strongest race I can and to learn where I sit on the GC ladder against the very best. The Tour is the race we are building for. The Dauphiné is the measurement instrument." Team management has consistently echoed that line through the spring, with Aldag at one stage telling Cyclingnews that he would "be careful to predict something from the Dauphiné" given how often the race has produced false readings on Tour form.
That said, the parallel with last year is hard to ignore. Lipowitz finished fourth on the 2025 Dauphiné GC behind Vingegaard, Almeida and Pidcock, and went on to take Tour de France bronze two months later. A repeat or improvement on that result would consolidate the German as a genuine Tour podium contender in 2026 and add a third name to the small list of riders who can hold a Pogačar-Vingegaard pace through the high mountains.
Roglič, formally absent from both the Tour build and this Dauphiné squad, is now ten days into his Sierra Nevada pre-Vuelta block. The Slovenian's full focus is the historic fifth Vuelta a España title he has been chasing since 2024 — a target that, if delivered in September, would put him outright clear of Roberto Heras at the top of the Vuelta record book. For now, though, the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe spotlight rests on the Tübingen rider who carried the team to its first Tour de France podium in a quarter-century, and who steps into Voiron-Voreppe on 7 June as the most-watched young climber the German operation has ever produced.