After finishing third at the Vuelta a España, Tom Pidcock and his Q36.5 team are already dreaming of future Grand Tour success, and plotting how they can close the gap to the top step of the podium.
Despite being up against tough opposition in Jonas Vingegaard, João Almeida and Jai Hindley, and being a relative newcomer to serious Grand Tour GC campaigns, Pidcock defied even his own expectations to finish third, his best overall across three weeks.
Top 10 or, ideally, top five had been Pidcock's goal at the start in Turin, trying to make improvements after an abortive GC attempt at the Giro d'Italia earlier this year, where he finished 16th, but his new team were Q36.5 instead rewarded with a podium, a rare achievement for a ProTeam.
Only in the first year of their partnership after Pidcock's move from Ineos Grenadiers, the new environment is clearly working for the Brit, and his team are already thinking about how they can turn third into a win.
"This is only the Vuelta, but it’s a step in the right direction for Tom with the numbers he was doing," Pidcock's long-term coach Kurt Bogaerts told The Cycling Podcast. "I think his body got a signal that it can recover during stages."
A former winner atop Alpe d'Huez, Pidcock has long been a proven climber, but with more focus on one-day races and mountain biking in recent years, his abilities across three weeks of racing were not well-studied until this Vuelta.
However, based on this early podium, Bogaerts thinks the 26-year-old has Grand Tour winning potential, though recognises there still is a gap to close.
"We are three minutes from the winner," he said, referencing Pidcock's deficit to Jonas Vingegaard. "And now we know that if we will potentially win a Grand Tour one of these days, we need to close a minimum of three to four minutes. I think that’s an achievable gap."
That is a belief Pidcock himself shares, too, unlocking whatever wasn't working for him previously at Ineos Grenadiers.
"The work we've done and the shape the team has got me in gives me more confidence than ever that I can win a Grand Tour," he said.
"It’s probably the biggest achievement of my career so far… this third place feels like a win. But it also makes me believe I could fight for more in the future."
With the positive signs, clear belief and growing expectations all there, the question for Pidcock is what's next.
Q36.5 have already made significant investment in his Grand Tour support for the future, bringing riders like Chris Harper and Eddie Dunbar on board for 2026, plus signing Classics riders like Fred Wright to ease the pressure on Pidcock during the Spring.
For Pidcock, his team, and every other rider, the Tour de France may be an ultimate goal, but Q36.5 certainly aren't going to rush towards that, and aren't even guaranteed an invite in 2026, given their status as a ProTeam.
"I don’t think we need to go next year to try to win it, or only to go for the podium," Bogaerts said about the Tour.
Instead, Pidcock and co.'s post-Vuelta path will be about harnessing what went right at the Spanish Grand Tour, and how they can harness that to close the gap to the top.
"I think we will try to copy this and analyze this event in detail. What can we do better? And what do we do well already?" Bogaerts said. "Let’s make it achievable, the progression."
