Tudor Pro Cycling Team: Short-term goal: stage win at Grand Tour - and in the long term?

"Our secured race planning and automatic World Tour invitations offer us valuable planning security. This is significant progress compared to last year," said team boss Fabian Cancellara on the sidelines of the training camp in Spain. The former pro could not have known at the time that the season would get off to a promising start in the first race of the highest category. Marco Brenner (Augsburg) missed out on the podium in fourth place at the Tour Down Under, but underlined the ambitions of his Tudor racing team at the premiere in Australia.

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Aiming for a stage win in the Grand Tour

"Our clear goal is to qualify for the WorldTour by the end of 2028," said Cancellara. According to the multiple Olympic champion, the still young season, for which the team had not applied for a World Tour licence, was "an important first step on the way to this ambitious goal". The team from Switzerland is still waiting for a stage win in a Grand Tour. But if Cancellara has his way, that should change in the coming months. "With the focus on the Giro, the Tour and the Vuelta, a stage win at one of the Grand Tours is our primary goal," says the 44-year-old.

Best pro team of the previous season

After Tudor Pro Cycling needed a wild card last year to be able to take part in the Tour de France for the first time in its young team history, the Swiss team is now guaranteed a starting place this year. The team is also no longer dependent on an invitation to the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España. This is due to the points system of the UCI, according to which the two best Pro teams automatically qualify for the season's highlights. Brenner's team finished 2025 as the best second-division team ahead of the equally ambitious Pinarello Q36.5 team led by superstar Thomas Pidcock.

High hopes for a stage win at the Tour de France (4 to 26 July) are likely to rest on Stefan Küng, who joined the team after seven years with Groupama-FDJ. For the Swiss time trial specialist, the team time trial in Barcelona is "an important highlight in my racing calendar", as the 32-year-old told several media outlets. In Julian Alaphilippe (France), Tudor is relying on another experienced rider who traditionally enjoys a lot of freedom at the Tour and can claim his seventh stage win in France after a rather bumpy year in the sport. Matteo Trentin (Italy) and Marc Hirschi (Switzerland) are also decorated with a partial victory in the Tour of France.

Four Germans in the Tudor squad

Alongside Brenner, three other German riders - Marius Mayerhofer (Tübingen), Florian Stork (Bünde) and Hannes Wilksch (Straußberg) - are part of the professional squad at Tudor Pro Cycling. However, the new season got off to a painful start for Mayerhofer, who had his first taste of the Tour last year: after a crash at the Tour Down Under, the 25-year-old is currently recovering from several broken bones.