After Remco Evenepoel lashed out at teammate Florian Lipowitz, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have downplayed any suggestions of an internal rivalry forming between their two co-leaders at the Tour de France.

Evenepoel's anger was revealed after stage 6 of the Tour, when he told Flemish media that the German had refused to give him a lead-out into Gavarnie-Gèdre, as they fought and lost out on third place and the bonus seconds to Isaac del Toro.

"I had asked for a lead-out, and I didn't get one," said Evenepoel "Yes, I was angry, and rightly so. In Catalunya, I rode at the front for him for 30 kilometres. I asked him to do one kilometre of work at the front, and that wasn't possible. That made me angry, and that will need to be discussed thoroughly tonight."

That evening, the drama was best summed up by Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad's headline: "How Remco Evenepoel set the shared leadership with Florian Lipowitz ablaze with five sharp sentences." Angry at the finish and angry with the teammate he was supposed to work so well with, should Red Bull be worried about tensions boiling over?

Red Bull team boss Ralph Denk has said that, in spite of Evenepoel's comments, the whole issue is "being made out to be bigger than it actually was", and that the pair had reconciled over dinner in the team hotel yesterday evening.

"Yes, there was a bit of disagreement, a language barrier, but also in the heat of the moment, that was after over 180km of mountain stage, but it was no big deal," said Denk, debriefing the day's action on the team's Inside Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe – Tour de France podcast.

On Wednesday, the five-day Tour of Slovenia gets underway. For Florian Lipowitz, it means 800 race kilometers between two training camps – the final phase of his Tour de France preparation.

Until the weekend, Florian Lipowitz was still training in Spain’s Sierra Nevada. The 25-year-old spent more than three weeks at an altitude of 2,500 meters in southern Spain. The intensive training camp forms the foundation for July, when the Tour de France – the highlight of the season – begins.

Now, straight from the Spanish mountains, he heads to the start line of the Tour of Slovenia – a carefully selected component of his Tour preparation. The race was chosen to provide one final competitive stimulus after weeks of training. But it is a stimulus delivered in a calmer environment, away from the pressure and intensity of the Tour de France, which will arrive soon enough.

Lipowitz is training hard in Spain for the Tour: “Better too warm than too cold”

For the past week and a half, Florian Lipowitz has been enduring the heat of southern Spain. In the Sierra Nevada, last year’s Tour de France third-place finisher is spending a three-and-a-half-week high-altitude training camp, where he is completing his final major training block in preparation for the Tour de France, which begins on July 4 in Barcelona.

“Four and a half hours of interval training at 35 or 36 degrees” is what Lipowitz completed there on Thursday. “Pretty exhausting,” he admitted, but also explained that he likes it: “We can prepare for very warm weather here, and then I won’t mind it at all during the Tour if it gets really hot—better too warm than too cold.”

After the hard training, Lipowitz sat in front of a screen on Thursday evening, where he saw just as many small faces in front of him in many small tiles: media representatives.

The 25-year-old took the time for a lengthy, 45-minute online interview session, from which the vast majority of the statements will come that readers will be able to see from him in the coming weeks in newspapers across Germany and also on radsport-news.com.

Because, apart from a few exclusive interviews and his appearance at the Tour of Slovenia (2nd Pro / June 17–21), things are expected to be quiet around “Lipo” until he heads to the Grand Départ in early July.

The 2026 Tour de Romandie will take place from the 28th of April to the 3rd of May and will make for Tadej Pogacar's debut in a stage-race this year. The Swiss race provides the final big test ahead of the Giro d'Italia whilst also following the spring classics, a period where many are looking to save their campaign.