World champion Finn to race for Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Rookies next year: "The focus is on racing, rest, and school"

"What I achieved last year has sunk in now," Finn told cycling journalist Daniel Benson. The Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Rookies team recently held a training camp in Austria, where Finn met other U23 riders as well as juniors and WorldTour pros. In 2025, the U23 team will feature 11 riders, with Finn as the youngest in the lineup. Two other riders who finished in the top 10 at the Junior World Championships are also on the roster: Denmark’s Theodor August Clemmensen, who finished ninth, and Germany’s Paul Fietzke, who came in fourth.

"I’m really looking forward to next year. The Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Rookies group is fantastic, and we have an amazing program. It feels like a WorldTour team, just with different races. The structure of the team has provided the perfect environment for me to keep growing without feeling too much pressure. We are treated like WorldTour riders and given the tools to develop both as athletes and as people. A large part of my success this year is thanks to them," said Finn. This year, he rode for Team GRENKE-Auto Eder, a junior team sponsored by BORA-hansgrohe. However, with Red Bull’s involvement, a new development team was created: Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Rookies.

Due to his school commitments until the summer of 2025, Finn will follow a lighter race schedule in the first months of the new season. The focus will be on select one-day classics and the Giro d’Italia Next Gen in June. After a short break, the attention will shift to the World Championships.

During the first training camp, Finn got to know his teammates well, but also the media. "We received some media training from Red Bull, which taught me a lot about how to present myself to the press. It was a valuable experience, especially with the WorldTour riders there."

The Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe team has a clear plan for Finn, focusing on steady, deliberate development over the next two years. The goal is for the Italian to make the leap to the WorldTour in 2027. "When we made the list, Finn was one of the first names we put on it," John Wakefield, manager of the German U23 team, also told Daniel Benson. "He’s still the youngest, so there’s no pressure for him to move up quickly. For now, the focus is on racing, resting, and school. Until the summer, we are working on creating a realistic race calendar. We don’t want him to go from 35 to 65 race days. That wouldn’t be development; that would be throwing him in at the deep end."