This is where Ineos Grenadiers go after Dave Brailsford’s Man Utd departure

After weeks of protracted negotiations, Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s purchase of 25 per cent of Manchester United for £1.35 billion is finally expected to be completed before Christmas. Assuming the deal does finally go through, it will mark the end of one of football’s longest-running sagas. It will also mark the end of an era for Ineos Grenadiers, Ratcliffe’s cycling team.

As part of the deal, Sir Dave Brailsford, Director of Sport at Ineos, is expected to step down as team principal of the Grenadiers as he takes up a senior management position at Old Trafford, cutting the last – and biggest – remaining tie to the original Team Sky lineup.

With big hitters like Rod Ellingworth, the team’s deputy team principal, having resigned last month, Fran Millar now running Ratcliffe’s clothing brand Belstaff, and Shane Sutton in semi-retirement after the trials and tribulations of various doping and bullying inquests – all of which he denied, only Carsten Jeppesen, the team’s long-serving head of technical partners, really remains of the original Sky lineup. And the Dane has never been front-of-house.

Since Ineos took over the team in 2019, they have been in an almost permanent state of flux. Chris Froome, responsible for four of Sky’s seven Tour titles in the 2010s, left following a career-threatening accident. Egan Bernal, the man they hoped would lead their grand tour charge for the next decade, suffered his own life-threatening crash and has not been the same since. Ellingworth left to run Bahrain-McLaren, then returned to ‘run’ the Grenadiers, although one got the impression he never really had full control with Brailsford still on the scene, albeit more remote.

Influential coaches such as Tim Kerrison, a major factor behind Froome’s success, also left, while Nicolas Portal, the hugely popular French sporting director who masterminded pretty much all their Tour success, tragically died in 2020.

The constant churn has left cycling fans wondering what Ineos Grenadiers stand for these days, and mainstream fans wondering what has happened to them. Why aren’t they winning any more?

As Brailsford’s imminent exit closes the chapter on their past, Telegraph Sport looks at what the future holds for the once-dominant team.

Identity: Rediscover it and identify new goals

In some respects not much has changed when it comes to their identity. Just as they were 10 years ago, the Grenadiers are out in training in Majorca right now. On the same roads, the same climbs; Sa Calobra. Cap de Formentor. Team-wise, though, it is a very different picture. A decade ago Team Sky were heading into the 2014 season off the back of Chris Froome’s maiden Tour win. The big question was which of Froome or Wiggins, the 2012 winner, they were going to back in the 2014 Tour. Could these two heavyweights of British cycling play nicely together? The big question now is what the Grenadiers are doing full stop. What do they stand for? What are their goals?

Brailsford’s exit may not actually make all that much difference, according to some sources. Even when he was heavily involved at OGC Nice, restructuring the Ligue 1 club (to decent effect, it now appears), he was still connected to the cycling team. Brailsford and Jean-Claude Blanc, Ineos Sport’s CEO, will still be checking in with their sporting properties every month going forwards, feeding back to Ratcliffe. 

Cycling is Brailsford’s core passion, so he will naturally take a close interest in Grenadiers’ ongoing fortunes. This is still his baby. And in terms of identity, Brailsford’s legacy runs deep. One source says there is still an instinctive ‘What would Dave do?’ response whenever any decision is being taken. They may not be the behemoth they were but the team still want to stick to the same script, pushing the envelope when it comes to research and development, innovating, not settling for second best, as they try to get back on top.

Structure:  New and ‘interesting’ structure after Ellingworth leaves

This is changing. Ellingworth’s departure, and Brailsford’s expected exit, afford an opportunity to reset the team along the Ineos ‘federal sporting state’ template, with a chief executive in charge. The new CEO was announced last week: John Allert. An Australian who has been based in the UK for the last 20 years, Allert was formerly chief marketing officer at McLaren F1 before overseeing their brief foray into professional cycling with Bahrain-Merida. When Ellingworth returned to Ineos, Allert went with him as managing director. He will be the link to Ineos Sport, business fluent, accountable. 

Below him will be Scott Drawer, who was unveiled as performance director in the same announcement last week. Most recently head of sport at Millfield, Drawer has knowledge of the UK Sport and Team GB system, having led research and innovation across five Olympic cycles. 

Below Drawer will be various different groups; the sporting directors, led by new director of racing Steve Cummings; the coaches; the R&D group which houses former Mercedes F1 aerodynamicist and former hour record holder Dan Bigham, and his old Huub-Wattbike pal Jonny Wale. 

“It’s an interesting time,” says one team source. “There has been a lot of change with the departure of coaches and riders and DSs such as Roger Hammond. But I think the DS group is now as strong as it’s ever been, with Steve, Imanol Erviti, Ian Stannard, Christian Knees. Rod’s emotional IQ was so good, they might miss that. Steve has rubbed people up the wrong way in the past. But they have some great coaches and riders and it looks like there will be a real push on R&D again with Drawer and Bigham.”

‌Performance: Develop riders into another top team

According to sources, Drawer will lead a more contemporary approach at the Grenadiers. Having dominated for most of the 2010s, Ineos have been knocked off their perch by UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma in recent seasons and there is an acceptance things have to change. 

This last season was definitely well below par, although it is always relative. They still won a fair few races and it would have looked quite different had Geraint Thomas clung on at the Giro. As it was, things fell away in 2023 with a directionless Tour – albeit rescued slightly by two stage wins – and an even worse Vuelta. 

The trouble for Ineos is they do not have a Tadej Pogacar, a generational grand tour winner, or team strength like Jumbo-Visma possess. They used to have both. Egan Bernal was meant to be their grand tour winner for the next decade but his accident changed everything. Just as worryingly, Ineos have seen an exodus of talented riders such as Tao Geoghegan Hart, Pavel Sivakov, Ben Tullet and Dani Martínez, without big names moving in the other direction. Primoz Roglic, Remco Evenepoel and Cian Uijtdebroeks were all linked. But none came. 

The team do have some excellent riders and young prospects. Filippo Ganna is obviously incredible but Jim Ratcliffe wants to win the Tour, not the hour record. Tom Pidcock is a superstar already, although a work in progress as far as grand tour riding is concerned. He will need to get next year’s Paris Olympics out of the way before he has a proper crack at the Tour. Carlos Rodríguez finished fifth at the Tour this year, which was probably the biggest plus of the season. Others such as Josh Tarling and Magnus Sheffield are seen as stars for the future. It’s about developing them.

‌Funding: Money should remain no issue

Ineos Grenadiers no longer have the financial muscle to blow everyone else out of the water. The pockets at UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma are just as deep. But they certainly have enough to compete. And they are a wholly owned team which is enviable. Money should not be an issue, as long as Ratcliffe is willing to keep underwriting the costs. There is no suggestion he is about to pull the plug, particularly with the team being so close to Brailsford’s heart.

‌Target: Win the Tour again and rebuild team around young rider

To win the Tour. It’s that simple. Ineos made a big deal of trying to race in a more dynamic style in recent seasons, with Pidcock backed to do cyclocross and classics (and doing brilliantly in both) and the team’s first win in Paris-Roubaix. But Ratcliffe is apparently all about the Tour again. It will not happen in 2024. 

Geraint Thomas – who like fellow old timers Luke Rowe and Ben Swift has signed a contract extension – desperately wants to win the Giro, after going so close so many times. But with Rodríguez and Pidcock not yet ready, it may be that he has to lead the Tour team again in 2024, with a podium the best he could realistically expect assuming Vingegaard and Pogacar stay upright. But in 2025? 

The team are hoping the combination of Drawer and Bigham, and a push on R&D and data-led development – “marginal gains for a digital era” was how one source described it – can lead to a new golden era. “When Team Sky started they had a guy who had finished fourth at the Tour [Wiggins]. Now they have a young rider who has finished fifth and won a stage. It’s not a microwave, you can’t pop them out in two minutes. But there is an opportunity there to build a team around Rodríguez or Pidcock, and there is some excellent young talent there with the likes of Sheffield and Tarling, and some excellent coaches and DSs who can get the best out of them. It’s not all doom and gloom.”