Willi Bruckbauer is, with his company Bora, the new title sponsor of the team formerly known as NetApp-Endura. In an interview with radsport-news.com, the trained carpenter who lives and works with team manager Ralph Denk in Upper Bavaria Raubling, talked about the possible Tour de France participation, the Bora squad for 2015 and sharing responsibilities between the sponsor and team management.

Bruckbauer is full aware of the importance of a wild card entry to the Tour de France and what it would mean to all members of staff, sponsors and the riders. “The attractiveness of the Tour de France is huge. The majority of the season revolves around it and, consequently, for this race is the greatest attention. From an economic point each sponsor wishes to ride the Tour de France. But even if we should not be there next year, therefore, it isn’t a disaster. We have bound us for five years on the team and I am convinced that we must ride the Tour a few times during this period."

At the minute how does he see his teams chances of being at the start in Utrecht next July?

“The whole thing is already hanging by a thread, but I certainly hope that the pendulum tends in the right direction and we will keep our wildcard.”

When asked if he wasn’t allowed entry to the Tour which of the sport’s other Grand Tours would he prefer to ride, the Giro d’Italia or the Vuelta a Espana, Bruckbauer said that he isn’t fussy and that all three Grand Tours are important to the team if they can gain entry to them. “The focus is for us to develop the team and for us as a sponsor all markets are important. We have deliberately chosen for cycling because the advertising reach goes far beyond Germany. For us both France and Italy and Spain would be good, because we have our distribution channels in all these countries.”

Some sponsors, like Oleg Tinkov, like to get involved in the team in terms of who they sign and who rides where, but Bruckbauer says he will leave all the decisions to Ralph Denk. “Even if the distances are short and I get along very well with Ralph Denk, he shall take the sporting decisions. He is much better than me at those. I am responsible for the economy and for a healthy capital position and he deals with the sporting side. If he does it as good as in the past few years, then I, as a sponsor, will be more than satisfied.

Bruckbauer says he had absolutely no say in who was signed by the team during the offseason either: “Not a single rider was chosen by me. I'm doing my job with the Bora kitchen appliances and Ralph does his job as a manager and selects the riders.”

He says that he is very happy with the composition of the squad, but he would have liked one or two more Germans (9 of the 20 riders signed so far are German). However, he would have found it hard to get rid of riders who have been at the team from the beginning and have given so much.

“I am thinking about to Jan Barta from the Czech Republic and Cesare Benedetti from Italy, who were there from the beginning with us - both of whom are also very good representatives for the local markets.”

Bruckbauer will resist the temptation to increase the team’s budget for 2015 to sign more rider. “I think the rider selection for 2015 has been completed. Our budget for next year is fixed and we will keep it this way. We have set 2016 contracts and we may increase beyond 2017, we need to see how the company develops. Currently, we are left very healthy and clean. I think that you will continue to hear a lot of Bora.”

Does Bruckbauer see it as crucial that Team Bora-Argon 18 make it into the WorldTour? “It would currently be presumptuous to say that we want in the World Tour. But if in 2017, the reform should come as currently envisaged that the best 25 teams belong to the World Tour, we would quite like our team to be there.”