Who will win the Tour de France 2026? Our definitive ranking of the favourites for the yellow jersey

It's nearly time. The Tour de France is nearly upon us, and with it the biggest and most important GC battle of the year as the best riders of a generation go head to head for the iconic yellow jersey.

Ever since the 2026 Tour route was announced last October, we've been tracking the contenders and favourites, ranking them after each and every important event, but now it's here, our definitive final ranking.

Given his successes all year and most recently at the Tour de Suisse, it's no surprise that Tadej Pogačar remains firmly in the driving seat as we count down the days to the Barcelona Grand Départ, with his long-term rival Jonas Vingegaard looking like his most likely challenging.

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However, the all-important Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Tour de Suisse told us a lot about how the other contenders for yellow are faring – some better than others – and who is coming into the Tour looking solid, and who will start with work to do.

After months of preparation, anticipation and speculation, in just a few days and weeks we will finally know who wins the 2026 Tour de France, and more importantly, how they do it. To kick off our countdown to the race, here is our definitive ranking of the contenders.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)

Tadej Pogačar was number one on our list when we first made it back in October, and unsurprisingly, that is where he remains. The Slovenian has already won four Tours de France – some where he was pushed to his limit, some which he seemed to walk – which means this year is his chance to win a fifth, and join a very small club of five-time winners. So far in 2026, he's hardly set a foot wrong, defeat at Paris-Roubaix perhaps his only real 'loss', and he's continuing to look more or less unchallenged as the greatest stage racer in the current peloton, if not ever.

Pogačar's final tune-up even was the Tour de Suisse, which he won by a margin of six and a half minutes, winning three stages: a long-range solo attack on stage 1, a TT victory on stage 4, and a mountain procession on stage 5, although he didn't quite go as nuclear on stage 5 as he might have. On paper, he seems to be building up to the Tour perfectly, but the only small hiccup is that he may not be completing his final training as planned, deciding instead to spend some time with his partner Urška Žigart who was seriously hurt at the women's Tour de Suisse. A few days of missed altitude training isn't going to ruin the work he's already done or affect his fitness, and it is admirable to see more riders choosing home life over racing, but it may mean he arrives in Barcelona with just a few more things on his mind.

As it stands though, it is pretty hard to see anyone beating Pogačar. He would have to falter significantly, either through illness or injury, to lose time on anyone. Vingegaard will push him, as he always does, and of course he's lost to the Dane before, but if Pogačar is in good shape – and there's nothing to suggest he isn't – it seems pretty likely that Tour number five is on its way.

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike)

The last time Jonas Vingegaard had this clean a run into the Tour de France, he won it, back in 2023, when he confirmed that his 2022 victory ahead of Tadej Pogačar was certainly no fluke. In the two editions since then, Vingegaard has been hampered by crashes in the build-up and had his preparation disrupted, almost missing the Tour entirely due to a horror crash at Itzulia Basque Country in 2024, and then being forced to skip any racing between March and June a year ago, due to a crash and concussion.

In 2026, aside from a bizarre training crash forcing him to delay the start of his season, Vingegaard has, for the most part, been undisturbed in his work. He survived and even excelled in the torrential rain at Paris-Nice, which he won, dominated the Volta a Catalunya with no issues, and then headed for a highly anticipated debut at the Giro d'Italia.

It was in Bulgaria and Italy where Vingegaard really came into his own. He avoided all the typical chaos a Giro throws up, exuding calm throughout his destruction of the field on almost every mountain he reached. The only exception was the one his teammate Sepp Kuss was allowed to go up the road and conquer in the final week, when the maglia rosa was already more than secured.

His climbing performances were impressive, and though not on the level that Pogačar has displayed at the past two Tours or his recent Tour de Suisse annihilation, Vingegaard always looked like he had more to give, breathing relatively easily throughout his efforts and at the finish. Taking an iconic Marco Pantani record atop Piancavallo certainly points to peak form.

The Dane's claim all along has been that he is usually better in the second Grand Tour he does in a season, having twice combined the Vuelta with racing at the Tour. So could the Giro-Tour double be the exact formula to turn the tide in his rivalry with Pogačar? That was the case for his rival two years ago, but he would need to reach new heights in July.

Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)

A few months ago, many would have been hoping that Remco Evenepoel or Paul Seixas were going to battle for a spot on the podium, but as the racing has gone on, it looks more and more like the third-best rider in this race isn't one of Pogačar's rivals, it's one of his teammates. Isaac del Toro almost won the Giro d'Italia last year, only his second Grand Tour ever, and instead of going back there this year, UAE Team Emirates-XRG have opted to send him to the Tour. His role is to be a luxury domestique for Pogačar but also to start learning the ropes as they prime him to be the Slovenian's successor.

Del Toro has had a very good year so far, proving himself as good as, if not better than, many of the current GC contenders, winning the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico. A muscle injury disrupted his spring, but he came back for the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes which he duly won, making it look fairly easy and beating several Tour hopefuls in the process. Del Toro will be all in for Pogačar in France – no one is expecting a leadership scuffle – but UAE have put two riders on the Tour podium before. So if Del Toro is as strong as he seems, there's no reason why he couldn't help Pogačar and still end up in the top three himself. He's currently looking stronger than other team leaders, after all.

Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM)

Paul Seixas has taken a hit to his ranking on this list but only by one spot, as a result of his crash and abandon at the Tour Auvergen-Rhône-Alpes, where he was unable to live up to his status as the heavy favourite and properly take on Isaac del Toro.

Just 30km into the penultimate stage, Seixas came down heavily on a descent of a climb, completely blaming himself for the incident, saying, "Today I paid for it. I took too many risks," leaving his body covered in blood and bruises. He went on to lose significant time as Del Toro surged to the stage win and towards the race lead, and though he fought on admirably the next day, it wasn't long into the final stage until he had to climb off and start his recovery.

What followed the crash, however, is what is partly keeping him so high up this list, with a remarkable chase from being four minutes down to back in the bunch for the finale, and a gritty performance up the climb with blood seeping through his white jersey showing the fight of a champion.

It was also a wake-up call for the teenager that he isn't invincible, as his talent might sometimes suggest. Given that his injuries weren't so significant that Decathlon had to cancel one of the most anticipated Tour debuts in decades, Seixas has possibly learned that hard lesson at just the right moment, as he heads for the highest-pressure race of his young career.

What can't be taken away from him is what he showed in the first half of the season, winning Itzulia Basque Country, La Flèche Wallonne on debut, taking second at Strade Bianche, and pushing Pogačar further than anyone has in recent years at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, living with his brutal attacks up La Redoute, before finally succumbing to the pressure up the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons.

Though Decathlon have had to delay their team announcement, Seixas is still set to be the youngest debutant at the Tour for 89 years, having headed to Les Arcs to train last Thursday and undergone an MRI scan early this week. Things are still on track according to local media, but the bump in the road at the renamed Dauphiné could prove pivotal – for better or worse.

Remco Evenepoel & Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

2026 was supposed to be the year of Remco and Red Bull. The German team finally secured his transfer after multiple years of trying, and the Tour project was on. But unfortunately, despite his strength and the team's resources, it's yet to look like Evenepoel actually has much chance of improving on his career-best of third overall at the Tour: he's good, but he's not on Pogačar and Vingegaard's level.

Given both he and Florian Lipowitz have finished on the podium before, it might feel a bit unfair to put them below two riders who have never even done the Tour before. But despite Evenepoel's strong start to the year, his form seemed to fall off, with fifth at Catalunya his last stage race result. He's taken a long break from racing since a strong Classics campaign, so we don't have an awful lot to go off in terms of his current form, so he may spring a surprise and turn up incredibly strong. But even the strongest Evenepoel has a ceiling, and it's probably fourth or fifth in this Tour.

Lipowitz returns to the race as defending third-place, and whilst Red Bull might roll out the 'shared leadership' line, it's clear what the hierarchy is between Evenepoel and the German. The interesting thing will be to see how they manage that, and if Lipowitz does emerge as the stronger one – which does not feel impossible at this stage – how quickly will they give him the green light to go for himself? In the pair, Red Bull certainly have a strong team, and one of them will surely get a good result, but unfortunately, the evidence so far isn't quite putting either of them amongst the top three contenders.

Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek)

Juan Ayuso may have technically dropped a spot on this list, but that's through no lack of his own performance, and it's only due to former teammate Isaac del Toro getting the better of him throughout a successful Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes for both riders.

The Lidl-Trek leader showed exactly why they brought him in for 2026 across the eight stages, contributing to a powerful team time trial and being the clear second-strongest climber at the race behind the Mexican.

Even if he did end up third overall due to Luke Tuckwell's great defence, it represented a return to the form Ayuso had shown in the early season at the Volta ao Algarve. Back in February he beat Paul Seixas to the GC win, as well as having the best of the likes of Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility).

Furthemore, this was Ayuso's first race back following two DNF results in the Basque Country and Paris-Nice in the spring, so Ayuso could and should well have more form to come ahead of the Grand Départ in Barcelona.

The race also gave us some answers when it comes to Lidl-Trek's potential leadership dilemmas, which were put to bed by the words of Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose, but also by the legs, with the former comfortably beating his teammate by 1:24 on GC.

Lidl-Trek will be chasing several goals at the Tour, too, with Mads Pedersen chasing sprints and the green jersey, so Ayuso will have less pressure on his shoulders when he makes his first start at the Tour as an outright leader.

Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility)

Still one of the most underrated GC riders in the peloton, Tobias Halland Johannessen has only kicked on in 2026 after finishing sixth overall at last year's Tour de France, netting more impressive results at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes since we last ranked the contenders.

He started the race slowly, showing all the signs of a rider coming down from altitude training camp and settling back into racing. But by the end of the eight days, he was back flying at his absolute best, finishing second, third and third on the trio of difficult mountain stages which closed out the week.

Of course, at the Tour, he won't be able to have a slow start if he wants to match or better his sixth place overall from last year. But this latest performance only suggests that the Norwegian is getting better and really living up to his Tour de l'Avenir-winning potential from 2021.

He didn't try to follow any of the big attacks from Ayuso and Del Toro on the final two stages, but rode his own pace impressively, picking off riders as he surged to the finish line, eventually ending the week fifth overall.

Uno-X Mobility have really impressed in what is their first season in the WorldTour, and Johannessen has played a major role in that. Another top 10 finish looks more than likely, but a top five finish at the Tour in July should not be that much of a surprise for Johannessen and the ever-impressive Norwegian squad.

Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5)

Despite Tom Pidcock's assertions that he's just coming to this Tour de France to enjoy it and not to put any particular pressure or ambitions on himself, he can't entirely deny his own talent, and his form this year puts him firmly amongst the top 10 contenders. The Brit stamped his authority as a Grand Tour GC rider when he finished third at the Vuelta last year, and we know he can go well in the French mountains, given he was a winner atop Alpe d'Huez in 2022 – which, incidentally, is the headline climb of this Tour.

So far in 2026, Pidcock hasn't won a stage race but has looked strong in the climbs, and when he returned to road racing last weekend, he immediately won the Andorra MoraBanc Clàssica, beating some serious climbers in the process. His lack of stage racing days in 2026 puts a slight question mark over where exactly he stands, but if there's one thing we know about Pidcock, it's that he doesn't need a big lead-in to an event to do well. All he really needs is strength and mindset, and he has that in bags. Plus, he looked really strong on the mountain bike in May, and he's a rider who can transfer form across disciplines well. He may not be piling the pressure on, and perhaps we shouldn't either, but it is not hard to imagine him contesting for the GC top 10.

Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost)

Former Tour de France podium finisher Richard Carapaz is coming into form at just the right time with the Grand Départ fast approaching, taking second at the recent Tour de Suisse behind Tadej Pogačar.

While the Ecuadorian may have finished 6:32 down on the all-consuming champion after just five days of racing, he was the second-best climber overall in his first stage race since March, also gaining most of his advantage on the rest of the race on the blown-up first day, where Pogačar went solo 60km from the line.

Carapaz missed out on the Giro d'Italia to undergo surgery to remove a perineal cyst, so he came into this block of racing in Switzerland with question marks over his form, but he answered them with a podium finish on GC.

He hasn't raced at the Tour since 2024, where he didn't target GC, instead winning a stage to Superdévoluy and taking home the King of the Mountains classification. In any case, this recent form suggests another bid for the top 10 overall could be inbound from the EF Education-EasyPost leader.

Cian Uijtdebroeks (Movistar)

Cian Uijtdebroeks has quietly been coming into top form in the build-up to his first Tour de France and first Grand Tour with new team Movistar, impressing throughout the week at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

Uijtdebroeks ended the race seventh overall and climbed to fifth and ninth on the two closing mountain stages. A solid team time trial from Movistar also suggests that he won't start the race on the back foot on the opening day in Barcelona against the clock.

The 23-year-old Belgian's luck has not been great in Grand Tours so far throughout his career, failing to improve on his impressive debut at the Vuelta in 2023, where he finished eighth, with his last two appearances ending in DNFs.

Luckily for him, he won't have the usual pressure at the Tour, which a top Belgian prospect typically breeds, thanks to the presence of Remco Evenepoel, so he will be allowed to quietly focus on his GC race as he looks to deliver on that promise.

In the same ilk as Johannessen, Seixas, Del Toro and Pogačar on this list, Uijtdebroeks is also a former winner of the Tour de l'Avenir, seen as the under-23 Tour de France, so has since then been looking to bring similar results to the elite WorldTour arena.

Kévin Vauquelin (Netcompany Ineos)

Signing both Oscar Onley and Kévin Vauquelin, fourth and seventh at last year's Tour, Netcompany Ineos started the year looking certain to have at least one solid top 10 contender for July, but that dream has fallen off in recent months.

Onley will miss the Tour after he suffered a nasty crash at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, adding to what has already been a tough year for the Scot, enduring several crashes and injuries.

Vauquelin has been much more fortunate, but hasn't particularly delivered, finishing 15th at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. That's not to say he's had a bad year, though, fifth at Paris-Nice being a stand-out result, and we know from last year that he has the strength to challenge at the Tour. If anything, losing Onley could be a blessing in disguise for Vauquelin, as he probably has better chances at doing well if he is the leader from the start and goes in with clear, strong ambitions. He finished seventh last year without being particularly hyped up, so although it's been a difficult year for Ineos' GC duo, their French star will still be hoping to fight for the top 10 again, and who knows, maybe the home roads and magic of the Tour will give him that edge he's so far been missing.

Other contenders

Bahrain Victorious' duo don't quite make our top 11 but Antonio Tiberi and Lenny Martinez are ones to watch nonetheless. Tiberi is an incredibly consistent stage racer making his debut in France, and his TT ability could make him a dark horse. Martinez has flashes of amazing form and then days where he loses time seemingly for no reason, so we don't quite know what to expect from him GC-wise, but expect him to be giving it a go on the hardest days.

French fans will be mainly looking at Seixas and Vauquelin, but the usual suspects of David Gaudu and Guillaume Martin (both Groupama-FDJ United) will both be hoping to make it into the top 15 or so, plus keep an eye on Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies), who ghosted into 10th last year.

Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) will return to the Tour after his stage win, stint in yellow and ninth overall in 2025, though replicating a top 10 on GC seems like a big ask for the Irish rider.

Other teams with multiple GC riders could see teammates of their main leader sneak into the top 10, notably Matteo Jorgenson for Visma-Lease a Bike, and Mattias Skjelmose for Lidl-Trek.

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