by next season?
they already said they are done and all they got was Jan Hirt.
gotta take the rose tinted glasses off for a moment. I love the QS team but it is in no way ready to support him at the TDF.
Let's not panic just yet. If he goes to the Tour, the team will be a lot better than it was now.
First of all one of the key helpers this Vuelta, Serry, got covid. Because of that, other guys had to start working a lot sooner. Serry can do in a hilly stage what Declerq can do on flat/cobbled stages. Ride a very high pace for a long time. If you look at yesterday's stage, you could see Van Wilder pulling the peloton with 150k to go. Well, not surprising he comes up short in the final. This team had Devenyns, whom i like, but he isn't the guy to do that kind of work. He can pull a few km in a hilly final, to lead out Alaphilippe, but he isn't the donkey that will drag you up a mountain or pull for 80k on the flat. Then Alaphilippe dropped out as well, leaving Evenepoel with basically only 3 fit doms. Cavagna, Vervaeke and Van Wilder.
Masnada tried his best, but the guy had an even worse year than Van Wilder and, well, he was borderline useless. Not out of ill will, just not in good enough shape. He went in the break a few times and did try to help Evenepoel dropping back, but i think it must have mainly been mental support more than anything else.
That said, i think both Masnada and Van Wilder will be a lot better next year, in case they can get a normal build-up towards the summer. Van Wilder wasn't bad, but rest assured he can do a lot better, and he will. Steels said of Van Wilder "What you're seeing now, is just his raw talent. He has had too many setbacks the past few years that have hindered his progress, so he still has a lot of development to go through." Unless they send him to the Giro instead, like they were planning on doing this year.
We know Masnada can do a lot better, and though he was pretty bad the past weeks, i really do get the impression that he gets along very well with Evenepoel and genuinely will try to help him, unlike he did with Almeida.
Then there is also Cattaneo, who could be a great asset in case they want to go for GC in the Tour. And then you have Hirt.
Assuming they all get in top shape, you have a rather decent team imho: Van Wilder, Masnada, Cattaneo, Hirt, Vervaeke & Serry for hilly/mountain stages.
With possibly Alaphilippe in case they can fit him in and obviously Declerq, Cavagna or Asgreen as well. There are also Honoré, Bagioli, Knox, Schmid & Vansevenant to pick from in case one of the others is sent to a different race or gets sick or injured. These aren't the guys that will help him up a MTF, but they are all capable of doing decent grunt work in hilly stages and the earlier sections in the mountain stages. Granted, they are lacking a Kuss or a Van Aert level dom, but then again that's also true for UAE.