Jean-René Bernaudeau is counting days. The owner of French ProTeam TotalEnergies has set himself a hard deadline of October 31 to produce the title sponsor the team still needs for 2027, less than two weeks after the UCI confirmed the squad had cleared the first financial hurdle for its 2027 licence.
The current title sponsor, French energy group TotalEnergies, is leaving at the end of 2026. Without a replacement, the Vendée-based outfit cannot credibly front the UCI with a 2027 budget in December.
Bernaudeau has made his intent plain.
“We will be at the next Tour de France. This first obligation has been met. Our application is solid, the budget will be secured… We have significantly reduced the entry point and partners are coming on board. It’s intense, but we’ll get there,” he said this month.
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The hard date is his own, not the UCI’s.
“The end of the month is naturally a deadline; we have promised ourselves that we will not go beyond October 31st,” Bernaudeau told L’Équipe.
Still €2 million short of the UCI benchmark
The projected 2027 budget sits around €10 million. For UCI approval, Bernaudeau needs 70% of that figure locked in before December’s licensing interviews. He has 50%. That is roughly €2 million he has to add in 11 days, according to L’Équipe’s reporting relayed by Danish cycling outlet Feltet.
The first checkpoint has been cleared. On October 15, TotalEnergies met the UCI’s bank guarantee threshold, which is set at 25% of the gross wage bill for a minimum 20-rider roster and held in escrow against any default on salaries. The filing has been approved.
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What is still missing from the UCI dossier is the one thing a title sponsor delivers: A team name, printed on the jersey, attached to the money.
The partners who have signed
Primeo Énergie, the Swiss energy group that has backed the TotalEnergies amateur structure, has agreed to step up to the professional side in 2027. The Vendée Departmental Council and a cluster of local businesses are also helping keep the team alive.
Equipment partner Ekoï, which supplies sunglasses and helmets, is in. Chinese bike brand Pardus is being discussed as a possible key technical sponsor.
None of that replaces a title cheque at the scale TotalEnergies has been writing.
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23 riders waiting on an answer
The sporting side is already shaped. Twenty-three riders have 2027 contracts, enough to clear the UCI’s 20-rider minimum. Nine have signed elsewhere for next season: Jordan Jegat, Anthony Turgis, Mattéo Vercher, Mathieu Burgaudeau, Emilien Jeannière, Alexandre Delettre, Nicolas Breuillard, Pierre Thierry and Thomas Bonnet. Three have retired: Lorrenzo Manzin, Geoffrey Bouchard and Fabian Grellier.
Bernaudeau has not been alone in staring down this registration window. The UCI’s provisional ProTeam list for 2027 is also missing Flanders Baloise, Equipo Kern Pharma and Euskaltel.
Team manager Stéphane Heulot filed the licence application alongside Bernaudeau earlier this month. One thing, Bernaudeau has said, keeps him moving.
“When things are difficult, it gives me strength,” he said.
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The UCI will interview candidate teams in December. Before that date arrives, Bernaudeau has one of his own: October 31.
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