From the 1st August, the transfer market will be open and Etixx-Quick Step Pro Cycling team will be certainly very active. Indeed, this team has some great riders who will be free at the end of this season. World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski, sprinter Mark Cavendish among others. But, Patrick Lefevere would like to sign a general classification rider.

"The four best riders are under contract and unachievable. Then you look at the level just below," he told Het Laastse Nieuws. "It’s wait and see. The Frenchman Warren Barguil may come, but that is still a little while off. Meanwhile, Uran is perhaps the best I can get."

About Rigoberto Uran, Lefevere dismisses Rigoberto Uran's chances of winning the Tour de France or finishing on the podium. "Last year he was second in the Giro and he wore a few days the pink," Lefevere is quoted as saying on Sporza. "You have to put things into perspective. I know what I paid for him. Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali are earning perhaps as much as three times more, but also fail in this Tour."

"Uran is and remains an outsider. I never expected that he would win the Tour. Maybe that second place in the Giro is the highest [he can go]. I have already said several times that there are only four riders who can win the Tour."