Lefevere: We have a team for 2019 but sponsor hunt continues

It speaks volumes that a team sitting on 54 wins this season is struggling to find a title sponsor for 2019, but that’s exactly the position Patrick Lefevere and his Quick-Step Floors squad find themselves in.

The Belgian outfit have been almost all-conquering in 2018, striking at an extraordinary rate of almost one win every four days throughout this calendar year. Not only have they demonstrated consistency, but they have also triumphed in the Tour of Flanders, La Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and, most recently, in San Sebastián. There’s quality within the quantity.

At present, Lefevere has enough liquidity to keep the team going for at least another season, even if they don’t find a new title sponsor for 2019. Quick-Step have invested three years of secondary sponsorship, while Lefevere is genuinely toying with the idea of putting his ‘Wolfpack’ handle on the jersey in the aim of building a franchise not determined by the whim of sponsorship contracts.

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"That idea started as a joke but since then it’s become bigger and it seems that people like it," he told Cyclingnews after returning to work after a brief summer vacation.

"The riders like it but to say that if we don’t find a sponsor then we’ll be called Wolfpack-QuickStep, then while it doesn’t sound bad, I can’t confirm it today."

Lefevere has been managing teams for a period stretching through three decades. He has aligned himself with the Quick-Step brand since 2003 and has worked with a litany of cycling greats, including Tom Boonen, Mark Cavendish and most recently the young duo of Fernando Gaviria and Julian Alaphilippe.

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