• Environmental protesters expected to line route this week • Ratcliffe says ‘noisy minority’ should not be listened to

There were no protestors blocking his path or sporting satanic face masks as Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest man, flew into the Yorkshire Dales by helicopter to launch Team Ineos on Wednesday, seemingly unruffled by the growing disquiet over his arrival in cycling and his attitude to climate change.

Team Ineos, the successor to Team Sky, is the billionaire’s latest big-money venture into international sports sponsorship following his investment in Sir Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup campaign and ownership of Swiss football team Lausanne-Sport.

Accompanied by Sir Dave Brailsford and the four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome, Ratcliffe was in combative and occasionally impatient mood as he rejected suggestions that his acquisition of Brailsford’s hugely successful team was mere “greenwashing”. Dismissing anti-fracking protestors as “ignorant”, he insisted Ineos’s move into the World Tour peloton was “about cycling rather than plastics and fracking”.

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“I wouldn’t want to get involved in fracking if it was dangerous,” Ratcliffe said. “All you do is pump water down. I think it’s a real shame that the north of England is being deprived of cheaper energy, and it’s outrageous the government listens to a small noisy minority instead of looking at the science.”

Brailsford was equally dismissive of claims of hypocrisy given his support for Team Sky’s 2018 #passonplastic and Ocean Rescue campaign. “Sky promoted awareness on plastics,” he said. “We’re not giving up our single-use plastic ambition at all. Whereas Sky raised the awareness, Jim and the team are the guys that can do something about it. If anything, it’s a step in the right direction.”

Ineos’s move into cycling sponsorship has been bitterly criticised and described as “sportwashing” by anti-fracking campaigners and local councillors, several of whom have now publicly withdrawn their support for this week’s Tour de Yorkshire race. None of this disquiet, however, appears to have affected Ratcliffe or Brailsford.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Froome rides through Linton during the team launch. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

Plastics, Ratcliffe argued, “Are essential to modern life. We don’t chuck it in the sea. We do what we can but we can’t solve the problem. We’ve spent 30 years on the Ineos project. It’s become very large and very profitable. We make $5-7bn a year in profit so there’s no harm in diverting a modest amount into worthy sporting endeavours. I like opera but I prefer sport.

“Part of our interest in sport is to help encourage health and fitness in children and adults. Cycling is a great way to get fit and I want Team Ineos to continue to play its part in getting more and more people to enjoy cycling.”

But as with Team Sky, Brailsford acknowledged that, as yet, there is no plan for an Ineos-financed women’s team. “We’ve been spending the last few months to get the kit and the bikes and the branding changed and its been a monumental task in itself.” But he added: “We’ll sit down and discuss our future direction and other opportunities.”

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Brailsford had the air of a man keen to break with the past. Gone were the sombre team-issue polo shirts and a more relaxed dress code among team staff hinted at a different approach.

“This next chapter will be very different,” he said. “I would like to bring the excellence that Ineos have in their business and share it into our world. That Ineos is so involved in other sports makes it a different proposition than just a cycling team on its own.”

With the Giro d’Italia looming, Brailsford and Ratcliffe are hoping for a seamless transition from Sky to Ineos to continue the British team’s domination of Europe’s grand tours. But that ambition may be overshadowed in the days to come as Ineos make their racing debut in this week’s Tour de Yorkshire.

Friends of the Earth and other environmental campaigners, sporting Ratcliffe face masks complete with horns, are believed to be planning protests against Team Ineos and their new owner, both along the race route and at start and finish areas.

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The Tour de Yorkshire organisers have said there will be no additional costs to the local taxpayer of extra policing, while Team Ineos are believed to have made their own security arrangements for race start sand finishes. But Ratcliffe’s weary dismissiveness of climate change activists failed to impress Lord Scriven, the former leader of Sheffield City Council and a vociferous and longstanding opponent of fracking. “It’s a greenwash,” he said. “A company that is damaging the environment is trying to associate itself with a healthy clean sport. It just doesn’t wash and the people of Yorkshire have the right to peaceful protest.