diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 65fa3fa45..5351abf87 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -40,9 +40,6 @@ matrix:
     - env: TOXENV=asyncio
       python: 3.8
       dist: bionic
-before_install:
-  - pip install -U pip
-  - pip --version
 install:
   - |
       if [[ ! -z "$PYPY_VERSION" ]]; then
@@ -63,6 +60,7 @@ notifications:
     skip_join: true
     channels:
     - irc.freenode.org#scrapy
+
 deploy:
   provider: pypi
   distributions: "sdist bdist_wheel"
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index e1e46921e..f51be432d 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ passenv =
     AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
     GCS_TEST_FILE_URI
     GCS_PROJECT_ID
+download = true #allow tox virtualenv to upgarde pip/wheel/setuptools
 commands =
     py.test --cov=scrapy --cov-report= {posargs:--durations=10 docs scrapy tests}
 install_command =