Team Ineos rebrand to Ineos Grenadiers before 2020 Tour de France

Geraint Thomas and company will bear the new name when the Tour begins in August

Team Ineos will ride under the new team name Ineos Grenadiers from the start of the 2020 Tour de France.

The British cycling team, who have been victorious in seven of the past eight Tours de France, left behind the name Team Sky after being bought up by the petrochemicals giant Ineos last summer. The move was greeted with hostility when Team Ineos launched at the Tour de Yorkshire, where anti-fracking campaigners protested against the company’s environmental record and accusing Ineos owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe of using cycling to ‘greenwash’ his brand.

Now the cycling team will bear the name of Ineos’s 4x4 car, the Grenadier, when they take to the road in Nice for the start of the Tour at the end of August.

Ineos boast the past three winners of the Tour, with four-time winner Chris Froome, 2018 winner Geraint Thomas and reigning champion Egan Bernal all in their ranks. But there remains uncertainty over whether Froome will ride the Tour, having announced a move to the team Israel Start-Up Nation next year.

Ratcliffe continues to expand his reach into the world of sport, with stakes in football clubs and the America’s Cup sailing team, as well as an engineering relationship with the Mercedes F1 team.