And here we go: the final three teams! You can check the first page for the complete prediction, all previews and an updated riders' picture for Porto - Prio as well. Hope you enjoyed this season preview til the end
Andy Schleck is still the face of the team and turning 32 years, his prime is slowly coming to an end. The premium climber has still at least this season to be amongst the very best stage racers, so Vesuvio can rely on his production. With Wiesenhof training Taaramäe, it's becoming more challenging for Schleck to produce those numbers he got used to though.
The management added some nice depth to the stage racing department, as both Nico Keinath and Leopold König will be both great premium domestiques and useful additional scorers (while not being too great 2nd tier leaders). Anyway, they should come some nice numbers through stage racers this year. The same goes for hills, where Gastauer is amongst the better puncheurs in the division. Some solid depth here as well, even though there's no second big scorer for Vesuvio here.
And that's the only issue I've had with Vesuvio: no premium scorer behind Schleck/Gastauer. Kittel (81TT), Vanmarcke (80COB) and Van der Lijke (80SPR) ain't too special leaders in their respective terrains. Van der Lijke with some nice skills to go over hills, so he may be something like a dark horse if planned right (and you better expect SN to plan smart). And while the second row in Vesuvio's leadership lacks the top quality, there's at least some scoring on each terrain. Something a few other teams lack.
Festina on 2nd? Well, it's possible this year. But of course this is an outstanding team and there should be quite a gap between them and Vesuvio (or whoever comes 3rd eventually) in the final rankings. Festina is everyone's favorite for making another title campaign and just for the fun of it, I've predicted them 2nd. But why exactly can I do so?
Well, if you want to find some weakness, there's the cobbles. Tom David and Pieter Jacobs won't do much damage in the ProTour. No depth behind them, so Festina hasn't got much power here. The TT depth ain't special as well, but of course there's Coppel and Vlatos as two potentially high scoring specialists. So that's more or less all about some minor weaknesses in that roster.
Spilak and Lecuisinier simply build a fascinating stage racing duo. Spilak as one of the best in the world and the latter as one of the best in the making. The 24 years old Frenchman comes off a very good season and as we can expect SotD do plan his season well, there's no reason to think he won't plan another high scoring year for Lecuisinier. No special depth behind the duo though. For the hills, there's Koretzky, who's just fine enough, but no top material with his 80HIL. A consistent scorer still.
Coquard is the only scoring sprinter for Festina now. He's a good asset to any team, but obviously he's not amongst the very top of the division's best sprinters. He will add valuable points though and with Tzortzakis gone, he needs to do so. Overall, Festina will score on any terrains (also Tom David of course), so it's another season with a good chance to repeat the success from the past seasons.
So here we have my prediction for the ProTour champion 2017: Moser - Sygic (formerly known as Becherovka). It's obviously a tough call, as Festina won't be beaten easily, but there's a chance for Moser, so I assume they will take it. There's only one weakness - in TTs - but let's just go over it as fast as possible.
Sam Bewley remains the monster he is and the cobbler/sprinter will produce heavy numbers for Moser wherever he attends. That's why the team's sprint departement is rated so high: with Vesely (81SPR) probably only sprinting to a few minor results, Bewley's results on both the cobbles and the bunch sprints make it possible for Moser to be rated in those spheres. There's some depth in cobbles, but not as outstanding as Aker - MOT. But Bewley obviously won't care too much and do his stuff.
Velits/Hirt (though not maxed yet) will be a nice duo in stage races. Some good depth for Moser here, too. Velits lacks the acceleration to be the real big scorer, but - turning 32 years old - he will take his last chance to climb amongst the best in the world. Sagan/Vakoc is a great duo for the hills then. Sagan has become one of the world's best puncheurs and if he performs slightly above his main stat (82HIL), the title campaign is indeed possible. From my personal point of view, it's a sick team, that also comes with the best looking "headline photo" in my preview.
Thanks for the preview tsmoha, a great read, and some interesting predictions. Was curiously waiting to see which of my team would make the picture! It's been my main tactic of the last two transfers, to lose the extra premium scorer in favour of terrain depth. Should be more fun, and would certainly be happy to end up 3rd!
I wonder how I end up with 3 stars in hills when Spilak is 82 HI and Koretzky is 80. Moser have 4 stars with Sagan 82 and Vakoc 80. I then think "It is probably because a rider is only counted as a one-dimensional one", but then I see Moser 5 star in both cobbles and sprints, and that means Bewley I guess.
Also 5 stars in depth for Moser 79-78-77 vs Festina 82-77-77 I would say is a bit off, but that's more debatable
Thanks for the preview mate. It was a very nice job, and despite me finding a few flaws here and there, it's a subjective preview, and we haven't had many of those in recent years - So a big big thumbs up for the effort! It's a very nice read.
I guess it`s because the amount of races Spilak is racing on hills.
Sagan, Vakoc surely will clash mainly with Koretzky I think in hill only races, while Spilak is already counted in the stage race/climbing area.
I`d say, Moser would deserve to win this year after coming close 2 years in a row, but I think it will be a rather easy triple for you as your team improved a lot really with Lecuisinier, Coquard etc. surely stepping up and making Tzrotzakis forgotten.
@SotD: Rating teams ain't easy, obviously. Must admit, that I didn't count Spilak into the hills department. Bewley though will obviously ride more sprint stages than Spilak will race hilly classics. At least I assume he will Even though Spilak will ride a few classics and Tasmania. Didn't really take your already revealed season planning into account though. 5 stars would be fair then, looking back at Spilak's season schedule now.
roturn wrote:
I guess it`s because the amount of races Spilak is racing on hills.
Sagan, Vakoc surely will clash mainly with Koretzky I think in hill only races, while Spilak is already counted in the stage race/climbing area.
I`d say, Moser would deserve to win this year after coming close 2 years in a row, but I think it will be a rather easy triple for you as your team improved a lot really with Lecuisinier, Coquard etc. surely stepping up and making Tzrotzakis forgotten.
Easy win is difficult that's for sure. Most of my riders overperformed last season. The only rider who didn't was Simon Spilak. Coppel maximized his efforts, as did Lecuisinier with 4th and 7th GT results. Koretzky at around 1000 points was also very much over the top and 700 points from Tzortzakis isn't easy to find anywhere to be honest.
I basically looked to make Koretzky and Lecuisinier score a similar amount of points by training them, and to make Coquard great next season.
I already did the math in my HQ and it came out with us winning the rankings by a small margin, but I would be very surprised if we were to win by a large margin.
I also think, than Moser will win, and I'm fine with that, as you say they have been up there for even longer than I have
Thanks for your preview, really cool stuff to read it all and I especially love these headline pictures with the biggest stars, fantastic idea really.
Honestly, I am not totally sure if my team has it to beat Festina. I feel quite confident my team can finish 2nd this year, but winning PT, that would be something. I believe you surely overrate my stage race depth, I surely lack a real 2nd leader, Hirt is the most probably missing just a bit to become a power in PT. On the other way I have some hopes for breakaway success in mountain stages, for Sagan and Vakoc being regularly present in top 10 in hills - and for Bewley to dominate cobbles and being on podiums in sprints, while Vesely can hopefully get a result here and there. I think that Festina look a lot stronger than me - they have Coppel to dominate time trials, they have Lecuisinier and a 2nd leader, Koretzky and David should also be enough to challenge for top 10 result. Plus Spilak is a superstar as well. But I love to see there is a prediction that ranks me as a winner. Would be perfect.
Even though Spilak will ride a few classics and Tasmania. Didn't really take your already revealed season planning into account though. 5 stars would be fair then, looking back at Spilak's season schedule now.
