'It’s nice to be up there again at the start of the season' – Oscar Onley impresses in debut race for Ineos Grenadiers, narrowly misses out on win

Oscar Onley concluded his debut outing with Ineos Grenadiers at the Volta ao Algarve by coming within centimetres of victory on the fifth and final stage last Sunday.

While Spanish star Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) pipped him in the sprint on the 2.5km, sharp finishing climb of the Malhão to seal overall victory, the 23-year-old finished fourth overall after an aggressive showing from his team, 1:22 behind the winner. Teammate Kévin Vauquelin spent most of the finale in a breakaway, forcing rivals to chase.

“Overall I’m really happy with the day and the team,” Onley told reporters after finishing second, sweat dripping onto his handlebars. “It was a really good move. That’s exactly why I wanted to join this team, to play like that in this kind of race. Maybe we don’t have the strongest guy outright but together, with our strengths, we can make things happen.”

Onley had finished fourth on last Thursday’s stage two finishing on Alto da Fóia, the race’s most challenging test. He was held up behind an uphill crash from UAE Team Emirates-XRG's Brandon McNulty which meant he had to ride hard to close the gap to attackers Ayuso, stage winner Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).

“It’s nice to be up there again at the start of the season,” the Briton reflected to CW mid-race. “I know that I’m not in my best shape, there are definitely areas I still need to work on and improve at, the real top-end stuff. I’ve taken the winter a bit steadier, my goals aren’t in February.”

His performance in the race’s 19km time-trial on stage three put Onley on the back foot. He lost over a minute to teammate and stage winner Filippo Ganna and ceded valuable time to the race’s eventual top three Ayuso, Seixas and Almeida.

The fruits of the Briton’s initial labours to improve against the clock are yet to be reaped. “I was in the wind tunnel last week so I’ve not had much time to ride in the new position, but it was all right,” Onley reflected. “Where I can improve now is [finding] where I can increase the power.”

There are plenty of other potential gains to be made at his new team Ineos Grenadiers as he targets the Tour de France. Racing for his former squad Picnic PostNL in 2025, Onley says that he had aimed to go into every race in top shape, which meant he “really struggled” after the Tour.

“Maybe I can increase one or two per cent just going in a little bit fresher and really focusing on July,” he says. “That’s one of the things [I can improve]. And just learning from everyone in the team here. There is a lot of experience. Me and Kévin [Vauquelin] were talking just now, saying we’re all kind of at a similar level. I think it’s really going to push us and bring the level of all of us up. We all get on really well, we’ve got different [racing] characteristics but that also means that we can play off each other a bit.”

Having Vauquelin and Thymen Arensman alongside him in the top ten on GC in southern Portugal put Onley in the novel position of not being the sole leader.

“[In the past] You don’t want to take risks because if it goes wrong, the team comes away with nothing … we can gamble a little bit more and that’s quite an exciting position to be in for the whole season.” With seven wins as we went to press, Ineos Grenadiers are enjoying one of the strongest starts to the season in the team’s history.

After finishing in the same position as he did at his break-through 2025 Tour de France, Oscar Onley will hope he can go fourth and prosper. “There’s definitely some room for improvement. I normally get better by doing a few races, and hopefully I can improve for Paris-Nice [which starts next Sunday]. It’s going well,” Onley said.

Compatriot Tom Gloag (Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) also continued his strong early-season, placing fifth on the race’s final stage on the way to 11th overall.