Ineos Grenadiers will continue to ride Pinarello bikes for a further four years after signing a new contract extension.
The deal will see the British WorldTour team extend its partnership with the Italian bike manufacturer beyond 15 years, a sponsorship that began with the team's inception in 2010. It also sees Ineos Grenadiers and Pinarello's partnership become the second-longest exisiting bike sponsorship in the WorldTour after Lapierre's association with Groupama-FDJ, which began in 2002.
The combination of both Ineos – formerly Team Sky – and Pinarello has been an extremley fruitful one. Over the last 11 years, the two have recorded a total of 393 victories together, including 12 Grand Tours and two Monuments while racing 17 different models of bike.
Recently, there have also been sightings of an 18th model, the yet-to-be-released Pinarello Dogma F14 which it is believed Richard Carapaz is currently testing at the ongoing Tour de Suisse.
This contract extension also quashes the semi-permanent rumour that links American brand Specialized with sponsorship of the Ineos team.
On the contract extension, Fausto Pinarello said, 'The Ineos Grenadiers are world-class bike racers, who love racing. They continue to push for excellence in everything they do. This dedication, professionalism and joy of racing is what enables the riders to race like they do and achieve the results we see at the world’s biggest races, aboard our bikes.
'At Pinarello we have strived to constantly develop our flagship race bike to keep the INEOS Grenadiers at the head of the peloton. That commitment to having the best-possible equipment started with the Dogma 60.1, right through to the Dogma F12 of recent years.
'The same evolution has followed in the cobbled classics and also in our time trial bikes. To see Filippo Ganna take the team’s 50th Grand Tour stage victory in Milan on the Bolide Evo was yet another proud moment for everyone at Pinarello.'
The big question now is whether this extended partnership will finally see the British team begin to use disc brake models of Pinarello bikes. As of yet, the team has snubbed disc brakes in favour of traditional rim brakes, seeing them remain the only WorldTour men's team to have not introduced discs in some form or other.
However, having spoken to Cyclist at the beginning of the year, Fausto Pinarello revealed that the team has tested disc brake models of Pinarello bikes and that he believes the 2022 season could be the year the team begin to introduce this technology into racing.