INEOS Grenadiers: British multi-million dollar squad starts 2024 with striking dichotomy in selection

In our year-end WorldTour team series, we have now arrived at the teams with the biggest budgets. INEOS Grenadiers has long been one of the richest teams in the peloton, but was that commensurate with the results in 2023? IDLProcycling set it out!

One-day games 2023: INEOS Grenadiers

Looking at the 2023 one-day races of INEOS Grenadiers, one sees three standouts: Tom Pidcock's victories in Strade Bianche and at the World Mountain Bike Championships and Joshua Tarling's European time trial title in Emmen. Three fine victories achieved by Brits, that will do the team management good.

Pidcock also finished third in the Amstel Gold Race and second in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, while Filippo Ganna finished second in Milan-Sanremo and at the World Time Trial Championships. All performances you can certainly be proud of as a team, especially considering the performances of such aliens as Remco Evenepoel, Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel this year.

In the cobbled classics, however, things did not really work out. Ganna finished sixth in Paris-Roubaix and tenth in the E3 Saxo Classic, while Pidcock managed a fifth place in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad as his best cobbled result. The Brit has even chosen to forgo those classics - with his weight - next year.

(Grand) rounds 2023: INEOS Grenadiers

Whoever says Sky/INEOS Grenadiers thinks first and foremost of the grand tours. The team was the leader of the Tour de France for many years, but now has to admit that it has been overtaken by other teams. Not that the Tour was such a failure by the way, with a fine fifth place and ditto stage victory for young Spaniard Carlos Rodríguez and another stage victory for Michal Kwiatkowki;

Geraint Thomas almost ensured the team's biggest success at the Giro d'Italia in May, but had to give way to Primoz Roglic on the penultimate day. The Welshman was doing a faultless Tour of Italy, which was partly overshadowed by a heavy fall of co-captain Tao Geoghegan Hart. In the Vuelta, sprint leader Filippo Ganna was the revelation, but that was all.

Other than that, the team was still on the podium in WorldTour races such as the UAE Tour (Luke Plapp), Tirreno-Adriatico (Geoghegan Hart), the Tour of Poland (Kwiatkowski) and Tour of Guangxi (Ethan Hayter), while lower-level tours such as Algarve (Daniel Felipe Martínez), Tour of the Alps (Hart), Norway (Ben Tulett), Austria (Jhonatan Narváez) and Wallonia (Ganna) were still won.

Final grade 2023 INEOS Grenadiers

Not top, but certainly not bad either: that is how we may describe INEOS Grenadiers' 2023. Hence, our (former) editorial board members arrived at an average 6.0 as the final rating for the British formation.

Transfers 2023/2024: INEOS Grenadiers

INEOS Grenadiers has lost a lot of climbing talent this transfer window. With Daniel Felipe Martínez (BORA-hansgrohe), Pavel Sivakov (UAE-Team Emirates), Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek), Ben Tulett (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla), five talented mountain goats are leaving the formation, automatically reducing the big round file a bit.

With Tobias Foss (Jumbo-Visma), Óscar Rodríguez (Movistar) and Andrew August (juniors), three pawns came in return for the time being. Foss is making the move to his dream team as an ex-world time trial champion, while Rodríguez is likely to be used primarily as a helper. August, in turn, is a very talented, only 18-year-old junior from the United States.

Incoming: Tobias Foss (Jumbo-Visma), Óscar Rodríguez (Movistar) and Andrew August (juniors)

(Preliminary) outgoing: Daniel Felipe Martínez (BORA-hansgrohe), Pavel Sivakov (UAE-Team Emirates), Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek), Ben Tulett (Visma | Lease a Bike), Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla) and Cameron Wurf (unknown)

Ones to watch 2024: INEOS Grenadiers

Many riders may have left, but INEOS Grenadiers still goes into 2024 with a selection brimming with talent. There is a notable gap in the selection: no one on the team is currently between 28 and 32 years old, which is quite interesting. At the lower end of the age range are top riders like Thymen Arensman, Carlos Rodríguez, Tom Pidcock, Leo Hayter and Magnus Sheffield for classification work.

Some of these guys can also compete well in the classics, as can hard riders Filippo Ganna and Joshua Tarling. In addition, Ethan Hayter, Ben Turner, Tobias Foss and Jonathan Narváez are also close to a definitive breakthrough at the age of 24 to 26, so the future certainly still seems bright for INEOS Grenadiers.

(Provisional) selection INEOS Grenadiers 2024

1. Thymen Arensman
2. Andrew August
3. Egan Bernal
4. Jonathan Castroviejo
5. Laurens De Plus
6. Tobias Foss
7. Omar Fraile
8. Filippo Ganna
9. Ethan Hayter
10. Leo Hayter
11. Kim Heiduk
12. Michal Kwiatkowski
13. Michael Leonard
14. Jhonatan Narváez
15. Tom Pidcock
16. Salvatore Puccio
17. Brandon Rivera
18. Carlos Rodriguez
19. Oscar Rodriguez
20. Luke Rowe
21. Magnus Sheffield
22. Ben Swift
23. Connor Swift
24. Joshua Tarling
25. Geraint Thomas
26. Ben Turner
27. Elia Viviani