Despite many suggestions that the transfer market is currently blocked by an uncertainty about a creation of the Fernando Alonso cycling Team, Oleg Tinkov doesn’t seem to be bothered too much by this situation since he has a very strong arguments in his hand – more literally speaking, an unlimited budget.

In such circumstances, the extravagant Tinkoff-Saxo owner intends to approach every interesting rider available on the market, since he has made it clear on several occasions that his only ambition is turning the Danish squad into the best team in professional cycling and expects to be provided with results corresponding with paid money in exchange.

“Number one in the world. I am simple. I want to be the best team. That’s it. We don’t want anything more than that. To be the first, that’s enough,” he said, serious enough to believe him.

Tinkov was less particular the usually when asked about riders he wants to see riding for the Danish squad in 2015 season, however, he pointed out to Edvald Boasson Hagen whose progress has drastically stalled at Team Sky and, absolutely obviously, Peter Sagan (Cannondale). The latter is currently the hottest name on transfer market and even though Astana or Fernando Alonso were also highly interested in signing Slovakian star, some information suggested that closing the deal with Tinkoff-Saxo is almost decided.

“Yeah but there are a lot of rumors. But we of course are talking to all the guys since we want to build the best team. We are talking to all of these guys like Sagan. We’re interested in [Edvald] Boasson Hagen (Sky) as well. We’re interested in a lot of guys. I mean good guys who are available. We’re talking to them. But we cannot sign before first of August, that’s why we have to wait,” Tinkov said.

“We definitely will sign two, three more stars who can help Alberto next year for the Tour. And maybe somebody to help Rafal [Majka] for the next Giro. Yeah, we’re on the market. And we are quite active. Haha.”

The Russian said he doesn’t have a budget for the team, and that its bottom line would be based on available riders.

“I think the budget we can tell you like in September. Now it depends who we buy. Maybe [Chris] Froome is available tomorrow.”

“Then we buy Froome and put him on Giro d’Italia next year and Alberto will be winning [the] Tour and Froome is Giro d’Italia.”

By saying this, the Russian oligarch acknowledged that building an extremely strong team around Alberto Contador and his Tour de France ambitions is still his main goal, however, he also intends to improve results obtained by Tinkoff-Saxo in the classics and surround young general classification contenders with stronger domestiques. The latter part may explain his rumored interest in Ivan Basso, as he would make a perfect gregario for Rafał Majka in the Giro d’Italia.

“The team is still around him, however we want to really improve [in the] classics. We want to improve the spring campaign, but he’s No. 1 guy,” Tinkov said. “And he goes for Vuelta, he goes for Tour. And I’m quite confident he will win it.”