Why Lidl-Trek signed Juan Ayuso, and what it means for their future as one of the peloton's super teams

Lidl-Trek finished third in the men's UCI rankings and is now becoming one of the sport's super teams, but team manager Luca Guercilena expects far more in 2026, especially after signing Juan Ayuso as the team's first true Grand Tour contender.

Thanks to the team's strength in the sprints and the Classics, withJonathan Milan, Mads Pedersen, Mattias Skjelmose, Giulio Ciccone and other riders, Lidl-Trek men won 46 times in 2025.

Race win totals are perhaps a blunt measurement of success and quality but are indicative and confirm Lidl-Trek are on an upwards trajectory, while competing with rival big-budget super teams. Forty six victories is less than half of the haul of UAE Team Emirates-XRG but more than Visma-Lease a Bike and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

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"I'm sure our time will come," Guercilena tells Cyclingnews during an exclusive interview that reveals his and Lidl-Trek's ambitions for 2026 the long-term future.

"We're currently in an era where Tadej Pogačar is clearly better than everyone else, with other riders like Mathieu van der Poel and Remco Evenepoel also making history. But cycling is cyclical and new riders and new teams will emerge sooner or later.

"We've got to make sure we have the riders who will lead the next wave of success in the sport. It's not easy because our rivals are strong and have long term strategies and long term funding. Fortunately, so do we."

Guercilena also talked about the Lidl-Trek women's team and their season of transition after star rider Elisa Longo Borghini moved to rivals UAE Team ADQ, and that portion of the interview will be published soon.

Last week, Lidl-Trek announced that German supermarket brand Lidl had become the majority shareholder of the team, with Trek stepping down to a minority but still important ownership role. The team will have a German licence in 2026 rather than a US licence, but will continue to have global appeal and an international roster that reflects Lidl and Trek's business interests.

Part of Lidl's headquarters in Bad Wimpfen, near Stuttgart, will become the team’s logistics centre and a dedicated performance centre is planned, alongside further long-term investment in the men's and women's WorldTour teams and the world-class men's development team. The team will also be able to tap into the technological expertise of Schwarz Digits, the digital arm of Lidl owners Schwarz Group.

It all strengthens Lidl-Trek's status as one of the sport's true super teams.

"Working with a global company like Lidl gives us something extra," Guercilena tells Cyclingnews.

"It makes us bigger, better and more successful and also gives us extra motivation, extra resources and opens a lot of doors to innovation.

"We have to measure ourselves against UAE, Visma, FDJ- Suez and SD Worx amongst the women, now Red Bull and probably Decathlon and others in the future.

"There's a lot of talk about performance but I'm convinced that it's the riders who still make the difference between winning and losing, so everything has to be built around them.

"We've invested a lot of time and effort into some young riders, we've reset and reshuffled the women's team and now we've signed Juan Ayuso too. The gap to UAE's level is still significant but we think we can be as good as anyone else."

'We were paid back for all our efforts in 2025'

The Lidl-Trek men's team climbed from 12th in the 2022 UCI team rankings to seventh in 2023, fourth in 2024 and now third in 2025.

Mads Pedersen won four stages ands the points jersey at the Giro d'Italia, Jonathan Milan won two sprints at the Tour de France and the points jersey, while Mattias Skjelmose beat Pogačar and Evenepoel to win the Amstel Gold Race and Pedersen won Gent-Wevelgem and Giulio Ciccone won San Sebastian.

In one of his revealing new Substack posts, EF Education-EasyPost sports director Tom Southam crowned Lidl-Trek as the best team in the men's peloton at positioning.

"Being in position at the key moment with your best riders ready to unleash their w/kg is probably the most important thing in cycling currently," Southam noted.

"We were paid back for all our efforts in 2025," Guercilena says with pride.

"In the last few years we've worked on developing and improving the team and our results have now followed. We were competitive on almost every front, up there with the biggest teams and always in the race. Consistency makes a difference."

Guercilena's personal highlight of 2025 symbolises the culture and sense of unity at Lidl-Trek.

It was not a specific race or results, but how Mads Pedersen understood that he and Jonathan Milan cannot both target sprints and the points jersey at the Tour and so accepted to ride the Giro d'Italia, with Milan making his successful debut at the Tour. It was a combination of the team's culture and good rider management that led to success.

"I especially appreciated the commitment of the riders for the wider good of the team. Every rider is ambitious at this level and has personal goals but they all know that the team comes first," Guercilena says.

"Mads showed his leadership and stature in the sport and in our team this year," Guercilena adds with genuine gratitude.

"He was paid back for accepting to ride the Giro and miss the Tour in so many different ways. The Italian tifosi loved him and I think he loved that affection and the success.

"Mads' success in Italy added extra pressure on Jonathan as he made his debut at the Tour but he showed his character. He was expected to win sprints and win the green jersey and he confirmed he could do that."

Of course there were many other high points but also many low points, including the gaping hole in Lidl-Trek's Grand Tour GC results. Tao Geoghegan Hart was unable to ride a Grand Tour for different health reasons, his return to form after his femur fracture and other setbacks needing more time. Skjelmose was also sick just before the Tour and eventually climbed off in the Pyrenees. Ciccone started the Vuelta strongly but also fell sick.

"We had plans and hopes for the Grand Tour but they simply didn't work out, it was probably the most frustrating thing of the whole season," Guercilena admits.

'It was not our style but it had to be done'

With that lack of Grand Tour results in mind, it was no surprise that Lidl-Trek wanted to sign 23-year-old Juan Ayuso when it became clear that the Spaniard could be on the market.

There have been reports that Lidl-Trek will invest close to €25 million across the next five years on 'Project Ayuso'. This includes a reported €10 million needed for the Spaniard to buy out his contract with UAE Team Emirates-XRG and then his €3 million a year salary for the next five years.

The team will no doubt also invest in its Grand Tour squad and performance staff, to help target the Tour de France podium and eventually, perhaps in a post-Pogačar world, victory in the biggest race in the sport.

Lidl's long-term investments in the team and now their majority ownership were surely the driving force for the deal, confirming the Grand Tour ambitions and much of the investment needed to make it happen.

Guercilena and his management team usually have a more conservative approach to signing and developing riders. They don't rapidly abandon riders if they underperform and have opted to develop talent in house rather than splash millions on existing big's name riders.

With Ayuso suddenly on the market and Lidl stepping up their investment and involvement in the team, it was the right time for a strategic change in style and direction.

"It's not our style but it had to be done," Guercilena tells Cyclingnews of the decision to sign Ayuso in what was a fairly dramatic manner.

"We were monitoring the market and so we were always ready if the chance came to sign a Grand Tour contender. We've got Mattias and Giulio in the team for Grand Tours and other future talents but when Juan came on the market, we made our move. When you're ambitious and an opportunity comes your way, you've got to step-up and sign certain riders."

Lidl-Trek announced the signing of Ayuso on September 25. The day after, Skjelmose publicly questioned Ayuso's arrival and wondered how it would affect his Grand Tour opportunities. Other riders perhaps asked the same questions.

Ayuso quickly played down any problems and the recent off-season get-together at Lidl's headquarters helped clear the air. The true extent of any internal rivalry will only be seen next season and if Skjelmose ultimately decides to stay with the team beyond 2026. It will be up to Ayuso to show he has changed and matured after moments of tension at UAE.

"Adding a new team leader can create some stress, especially for the other riders and I think Mattias' initial reaction was understandable even if it was a little out of place and didn't really help things," Guercilena tells Cyclingnews of Ayuso's integration into the Lidl-Trek team.

"We've always shown that Lidl-Trek can build a loyal and united team and I'm sure my staff have the ability to do that again. We're excited about having signed Juan. I'm not that interested in a rider's previous behavior but how they behave when they're with us. We're confident he'll fit in the team really well."

It's logical that Ayuso will target the Tour de France in 2026, especially after the huge investment to sign him. He showed his Grand Tour potential with third on his debut at the 2022 Vuelta a España. He was fourth in the 2023 Vuelta but then was hit by COVID during the 2024 Tour, as his relationship with the team and with Pogačar worsened.

He was given leadership status at the 2025 Giro but then Isaac del Toro surged away on the gravel stage to Siena and Ayuso crashed. He never recovered mentally and physically and eventually climbed off on stage 18

His divorce from UAE was announced during the Vuelta, with him describing the team as a 'dictatorship'. He went on to win two stages from breakaways but finished 68th overall and was isolated from his team. His move to Lidl-Trek was announced two days after the Vuelta and he never raced in UAE colours again, only riding the World and European Championships with Spain.

Ayuso has the talent to be a podium contender at the 2026 Tour. Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard are again expected to fight it out for victory; there is no reason why Ayuso can't take on Evenepoel, Florian Lipowitz, and others for the fight for a final podium place.

The next step up for Lidl-Trek

Teams prefer to keep their Grand Tour strategies under wraps until all three race routes are known, have been analysed and team strategies discussed at length by management. Lidl-Trek's sports directors and performance staff are still working through the process for 2026.

"Our first goal is to win a Grand Tour, then we want to win the Tour too. The Tour is the big goal, the biggest goal in cycling, we all know that," Guercilena says.

"Our options for our 2026 goals are still open. We've never gone down the obvious route of just focusing on the Tour, even if it's the biggest race of the year. We'll make our own goals and plans that suit our goals, our riders and our long-term strategy."

The first steps in planning for 2026 were made at the team's recent get together in Germany. Skjelmose hinted that he might not ride the Tour in 2026 but we will only know more in December or even January, when Lidl-Trek reveal their plans.

Of course, Guercilena has some personal ambitions that are part of a wider, more detailed plan.

"I'd love to see Mads win a Monument Classic. We deserve a big win like that and so does Mads," he says, carefully setting the bar high for his riders.

"We'd also like to confirm Jonathan Milan's sprinting success and have more success from other riders like Skjelmose, Ciccone, Quinn Simmons and others. They all stepped-up on in 2025, getting results when they were expected and under pressure to get them. That's different from before, when they were perhaps underdogs. This year they were expected to win and they did.

"I'm also curious to see what Albert Philipsen, Mathias Vacek, Thibau Nys, Jakob Söderqvist and Tim Torn Teutenberg can do. We've also signed Matteo Sobrero, Mathias Norsgaard and Max Walscheid to strengthen the core of the team for key roles.

Guercilena is ultimately responsible for making the strategic sporting decisions at Lidl-Trek. In the next few weeks, he will have to decide if Ayuso targets the 2026 Tour and what that means for the rest of the team and the 2026 season. He will also have to decide if Lidl-Trek can target the Tour, stage wins and the points jersey and so if Milan or Pedersen are given the protected sprinters role in the eight-rider Tour line-up.

"I know that Mads would love to win the green points jersey at the Tour and we would too. He's one of the leaders and is a charismatic leader in the team," Guercilena says, explaining the importance of his decision for 2026.

"The final decision will be a sporting and performance decision made during the winter. It's ultimately my decision. It won't be easy but we made the right decision for 2025 and so I think we can get it right for 2026 too.

"Thanks to Trek's vision and support in recent years and now Lidl's backing, we're confident about the future. We're working hard to ensure everything is in place for long term success. As is said, I'm sure our time will come in the years ahead."