Croatia14 wrote:

It will be difficult imo. A lot depends on whether you find the right GT for Haig. Wishing you all the best.

baseballlover312 wrote:

As you say, you probably are missing that third leader a bit, but I think you can still survive with some good planning because Haig and Zmorka are A-tier leader on their respective terrains. I assume since the latter was a transfer target, you've built your PTHC calendar towards TT's, as that will be a big factor as well in having enough points available for him. Where he goes, he'll obviously score. Then you get lucky in some GT breaks, and anything's possible.

Hayter has been the center piece of our talent factory for the past couple of years along with Mick Van Dijke, and with the latter finishing his development, Hayter takes center stage in his final growing year. As has been communicated multiple times already, we have chosen the more traditional growth path for our future stage racer.

	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	AC	FT	DH	PR
2025	73	77	68	74	74	74	71	61	66	75	66	70	75
Climber v1	73	79	70	74	74	75	72	61	66	77	68	70	75
Stage Racer	73	79	69	76	75	75	73	61	66	75	66	70	77
Fighter	75	78	69	75	75	75	72	62	67	76	68	71	76

The next rider who will complete his development this year, is the first of the Indian golden generation, who should develop into a useful sprinter replacing the like of Hofstetter directly in our team, without any further investment.

	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	AC	FT	DH	PR
2025	75	58	64	63	72	66	66	52	75	77	62	65	71
Sprinter	77	58	64	63	74	67	70	53	77	79	62	65	71
Track Sprint	77	58	64	63	73	68	70	52	77	79	62	65	73

One of the new guys in the factory, is Arias Villanueva, who is expected to already be an important part of our TTT unit this season. He will develop into a stronger time-trialist this time next season.

	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	AC	FT	DH	PR
2025	73	60	63	75	73	74	70	61	62	68	70	65	75
Time Trial	74	60	63	77	74	76	71	61	62	68	71	65	77
Track-TT	74	60	63	77	74	75	71	61	63	69	70	65	77

The next in the line of Indian recruits is another time-trialist who will become an important part of our TTT unit when fully developed.

	FL	MO	MM	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	AC	FT	DH	PR
2025	68	62	64	72	69	70	65	68	70	72	61	60	72
Time Trial	71	62	65	76	72	75	68	68	69	71	64	60	76
Track-TT	71	62	64	76	72	72	67	68	72	74	61	60	76

Continuing the Indian theme, arguably the most talented of the golden generation is stronger than last year, but only halfway through his development. We expect him to become our sprinter of choice for stage races going ahead.

	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	AC	FT	DH	PR
2025	70	61	64	61	68	74	61	61	73	74	58	67	69
Sprinter	74	62	66	61	73	75	74	65	78	78	58	68	67
Track Sprint	74	61	66	62	70	78	71	61	78	78	58	68	74

Trezise is most versatile of our flat talents, with us favouring the fighter path for him, instead of a more traditional sprinting version.

	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	AC	FT	DH	PR
2025	74	60	59	62	68	73	64	66	73	73	61	67	64
Sprinter	78	60	60	62	71	74	74	69	77	77	61	68	64
Track Sprint	78	60	60	63	69	76	73	66	77	77	61	68	68
Fighter	79	62	61	64	71	76	71	68	75	76	65	69	66

Another new entrant, another TT talent! Holm Jorgensen is the first ever Danish rider on the team, and we expect him to also become an useful spoke in our TTT wheel in the future.

	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	AC	FT	DH	PR
2025	72	55	59	71	68	64	72	53	58	64	64	65	73
Time Trial	76	56	61	76	71	68	76	53	58	64	67	66	78
Track-TT	76	55	60	76	71	67	76	53	61	66	64	66	78

The first of two Indian riders signed this off-season, Beckham is another roluer who can specialize in the Prologues, if he so wishes!

	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	AC	FT	DH	PR
2025	71	56	60	66	67	66	60	65	57	68	68	62	72
Time Trial	76	56	61	73	72	73	65	65	57	68	71	62	79
Track-TT	76	56	60	73	72	69	64	65	60	71	68	62	79
Fighter	78	56	63	69	72	69	64	67	60	72	73	63	75
Fabian	76	56	61	70	72	70	61	72	57	68	68	62	76

The final talent in our assembly line is one who chose to ride for one of the countries of his heritage, and we were more than happy to give him his first contract this off-season! He should be an able successor to Mick in the near future.

	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	AC	FT	DH	PR
2025	68	62	70	58	69	67	66	58	65	69	67	68	62
Puncher	71	66	79	59	77	71	70	58	68	77	74	71	63
Climber v1	69	71	78	59	72	72	73	58	65	76	76	71	63

redordead wrote:
It took some balls to make that shirt.

We had to select a Win glad, and we thought it best choose a GT for it! The Giro d'Italia seemed the most fitting for our off-season plans, so we chose this.

Why stop at one GT goal when we can have more! We also picked the TDF as a Top 5 goal, simply as a contingency plan based on the stage racer and TTT team we were able to bring in during transfers.

The third and final goal for our then unsigned stage racer - and now Haig! We hope the triple clash goes in our favour and Haig can make it onto the podium in this race.

Zmorka has been on the podium in this race before, and he's tasked with the same this time. Not really sure he can repeat that though, given the competition in the division with respect to time-trialists.

Another goal which we think is quite out reach, but we had to go high in goals to be able meet our ambitions in the transfer window. If we get anywhere close to this, we'll be delighted! We just hope we don't end up something around double of this in the rankings.

knockout wrote:

Very interesting strategy with the double GT goal. Im very curious to see which one youre pursuing more actively this season!

All goals are on the more ambitious side of things but also fit the type of riders you were succesfully chasing this offseason. Seems like you sticked to your plan.

A very short calendar for Haig, given the limited RDs. All four races will be very important for our survival chances and the margin of error is very small! The main decision we had to make was whether to send him to Slovenia or a combination of Tasmania and Lombardia, but his relatively poor outing in Tasmania last season tilted our choice to Slovenia, where we're hoping our TTT team can make a difference for him.

**Races in bold are Goal races.

Straightforward calendar for Zmorka leaving just a couple of Prologues along the way. We hope he can challenge for the podium in every race he is in, and something better would always be welcome!

**Races in bold are Goal races.

Mick has maxed this off-season and is immediately thrown into the deep end with puncher leadership in the PT! We're not really sure what to expect, having no past reference, but we do hope he can contribute significantly in our quest to prevent relegation.

**Races in bold are Goal races.

Kulikovskiy has been assigned the responsibility of leading our sprint charge at the Vuelta, along with all the sprint classics, Qatar and a couple of other stage races. We hope he can utilize his strong support stats along with sprinting guile to repeat his strong performances from last season.

Owen will lead in all cobbles outings with an added race in Grand Duche to make up the numbers for the team. Trying to get into the Top 10, while staying in the Top 15 all season.

Leemreize will get leaership opportunities in Vuelta a Espana, Colombia, Liechtenstein and East Java while he will deputize for Haig in the other two races. His calendar is also quite short, with two GTs making up almost 70% of his RDs.

**Races in bold are Goal races.

Much like Leemreize, Hofstetter is charged with leading our sprints in two GTs, his home race - the TDF and also in the Giro. He will race multiple stage races and accompany the cobbles unit in all their races.

**Races in bold are Goal races.

Rekita mostly follows Zmorka around all season but also participates in a couple of races with TTs which Zmorka could not attend. He will especially be a very important part of all TTT races.

**Races in bold are Goal races.

Roson is tasked with leading the team in the Giro and Lombardia, while he shares leadership duties in the Vuelta, Colombia and East Java. He will be the superdom for Haig in the couple of remaining races on his schedule.

**Races in bold are Goal races.

We start our PT journey in Australia with the Tour of Tasmania. We come to this race targeting stage glory in the Time Trial. We are also looking at Hofstetter trying to get lucky on the flat stage. Us getting anything from the GC would need the hill stage to be quite unselective.

Another race with low expectations in this month! Klikovskiy will lead hoping for a couple of over-performances akin to last season. The full flat squad is here in support, but we don't expect much from what will surely be astacked startlist.

The race started decently, with Hofstetter getting 7th in quite a tough field on Stage 1.

All of our riders lost time, quite expectedly on Stage 2, removing any chances of a decent GC placing.

Zmorka didn't lost heart, and came back to get 2nd in the Time Trial on Stage 3.

84	Marlen Zmorka	Sony - Force India	+ 6'29
86	Szymon Rekita	Sony - Force India	+ 6'57
109	Tim Van Dijke	Sony - Force India	+ 7'35
110	Sergio Arias Villanueva	Sony - Force India	+ 7'36
115	Naveen John	Sony - Force India	s.t.
117	Dinmukhammed Ulysbayev	Sony - Force India	+ 7'53
128	Diego Rossi	Sony - Force India	s.t.
148	Hugo Hofstetter	Sony - Force India	+ 9'40

Zmorka finished 6th in the Points.

We didn't have a lot of hopes from this race. Kulikovskiy got just one Top 10, a 9th place on Stage 3.

The Time Trial didn't produce much either, but TVD and Rossi did manage to move up to 3rd and 4th in the U25s.

44	Tim Van Dijke	Sony - Force India	+ 51
46	Diego Rossi	Sony - Force India	s.t.
69	Sergio Arias Villanueva	Sony - Force India	s.t.
98	Esow Alben	Sony - Force India	+ 1'03
130	Piet Allegaert	Sony - Force India	s.t.
138	Alexandr Kulikovskiy	Sony - Force India	+ 1'20
150	Nicolay Cherkasov	Sony - Force India	s.t.
155	Hayden McCormick	Sony - Force India	s.t.