There's something strange going on over at Ineos Grenadiers: they're winning and having fun.
For years, the team would unsmilingly decamp from the Death Star team bus, ready to relentlessly train it over mountains in pursuit of ruthless victory. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. They didn't need to win hearts and minds with interesting, dynamic racing as a fawning British public forgave any perceived mundanity for a rare taste of Tour de France glory.
But then they stopped winning, and the British stars and, well, "British-ness" that had originally given the team meaning started to ebb. You still saw a fair few old Team Sky jerseys while out and about riding in the UK, but the heyday of the mid-2010s was already a distant memory.
It was replaced first by the petro-millions of Jim Ratcliffe that saved the team from the brink, and then also replaced by mediocrity. Rudderless and anonymous in its favoured Tour de France, now outgunned by younger, hungrier rivals. After Ineos' worst-ever year in 2024 when it recorded just 14 wins and faced a staff exodus, as well as a very public and uncomfortable uncoupling with star rider Tom Pidcock, we spoke to a number of former staff who laid bare the team's decline in our Skyfall investigation.
There was a lot of pessimism surrounding the squad's future, but five months into 2025, there is a sense of hope in the air.
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