Team Sky: New ‘Team Ineos’ sponsorship is ‘ideal situation’ for Dave Brailsford, says Bradley Wiggins

Sky announced last December that this would be its final year sponsoring the team, bringing to an end a decade of success on the road which was tarnished by controversies around the team’s conduct

Bradley Wiggins believes Dave Brailsford will inherit the “ideal situation” should Team Sky be take over by Britain’s richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

Reports suggest Ratcliffe, whose net worth is valued at £21bn, is on the verge of announcing a sponsorship deal which would see the team renamed Team Ineos after his petrochemical company.

Sky announced last December that this would be its final year sponsoring the team, bringing to an end a decade of success on the road which was tarnished by controversies around the team’s conduct.

“Dave will want to retain control and it is Dave’s way in terms of the way he manages the team, the way he sets the team up,” the Olympic gold medallist said in the first episode of the new series of The Bradley Wiggins Show by Eurosport.

“I think he would have been reluctant to have another multi-national company that came in that wanted it for the advertisement and to get their name out there, but would want the control in terms of ‘This is how we want to do it in terms of how we advertise our company’.

“I think that would have been a big point for Dave. So in some ways it’s an ideal situation. He (Ratcliffe) is the richest man in Britain and you would imagine that the kind of money they have asked for is nothing to him.

“Dave can continue running out this team with all his plans and philosophies, so it’s an ideal situation for him and he is answerable you’d imagine to one man – it’s his money. It will certainly help that team.”

Additional reporting by PA