Bahrain McLaren's Dylan Tuns will support Mikkel Landa in the Tour de France and will be aiming for the rainbow jersey for Belgium in the World Championship road race at the end of September.

"My role will be a little different from last year. The team has big ambitions for the Tour with Mikkel Landa and Wout Poels, so I will have to ride more for them," Theuns said Monday, winning a stage to La Planche des Belles Fils when the race starts in Nice on August 29. He said he is not as free as he experienced in 2019, when he won the stage to La Planche des Belles Fils, and is ready to play a more defined role.

"Together with Damiano Caruso and Pello Bilbao, we can share the work in the mountains," he told Sporza from the team's high-altitude training camp in Andorra.

Teuns will immediately change roles as leader of the Belgian national team for the world championship road race in Switzerland on September 27, just one week after the Tour Paris ends.

"With the classics and the world championships in mind, it is important not to be completely empty from the Tour," Teuns said. 'We already talked about having the World Championships as a goal during the off-season, and nothing has changed in that regard. A good result at the World Championships is good compensation for my support role in the Tour. That is my main goal for this fall."

Tüns has already competed in 16 races this season before the sport closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, participating in Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and Paris-Nice, as well as the February Ruta del Sol in February, where he won the time trial stage.

He will restart his season on August 1 at Strade Bianche.

"It's a difficult course, but the riders who have won in the past are similar to me. I hope my legs are in good shape and if they are, I'm not going to hide," Tuns said. [It's] a little bit difficult to estimate my level. You always have to compare yourself to the competition and see where you stand.

Perhaps just as pressing as the race is where Tuns will go next season, when his contract with Bahrain McLaren expires at the end of this year.

"I think Bahrain will have a team next year," Teuns said of his team partner McLaren's predicament. McLaren, the automaker and patron of Formula One teams, is reconsidering its support for the cycling team after a coronavirus outbreak earlier this spring cost 1,200 jobs at its British base.

"There is certainly still a future for that team," he said, referring to both the team's survival and the possibility of his remaining with it. I hope to wrap things up in the next few weeks. I'm very ambitious and I'm happy that other teams are interested, but my current team is still in the running."