September was mostly about the last Grand Tour of the year, but the PT teams also had up to three one day races to gather some points.
Riga Jurmala was the first PTHC race of the month and although not that many PT teams entered the race Indosat Ooredoo with 187 and Aker – MOT with 160 points took some advantage of this race. Puma – SAP with 80 points also scored okay here, all other teams were below 40 points.
Strada Appia was a mandatory race and so the scoring was obviously much higher. Rabobank not only took the race win but was also the best scoring team with 278 points. Tinkoff and ELCO - ABEA also scored well about 200 points.
Japan Cup was the last PTHC race of the month and the scoring was even lower than in Latvia. Fastneds 172 points were the best score by quite a margin as second best team Evonik – ELKO scored just 100 points. Aker – MOT in 3rd got 88 points out of the race.
The biggest race of the month was obviously the Vuelta and that also shows in the scoring. The best scoring team is actually a little surprise although it was clear they had a great race: Carlsberg beat the team of the race winner Puma – SAP by a mere 8 points! Those two were also the only teams to score more than 1000 points with 1283 and 1275 respectively. Indosat Ooredoo came 3rd with 908 points. Xero with 805 and Fastned with 670 were next but also already some way behind.
So which team wins this month? It’s actually another close one between the two dominating teams of the Vuelta and with the same outcome! Carlsberg wins the month with 1454 points in front of Puma – SAP who scored 1428. Third is once again Indosat Ooredoo as the last team above a 1000 points with 1135. Xero and Fastned come in 4th and 5th with 939 and 936 points.
Period Ranking February
Pos
Team
Riga - Jurmala GP
Strada Appia Antica
Japan Cup
Vuelta a Espana
Sep
1
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
0
106
65
1283
1454
2
Team Puma - SAP
80
73
0
1275
1428
3
Indosat Ooredoo
187
40
0
908
1135
4
Xero Racing
10
45
79
805
939
5
Fastned
0
94
172
670
936
6
Aker - MOT
160
175
88
392
815
7
Cedevita
0
145
0
614
759
8
Gazelle
0
79
53
603
735
9
Rabobank
34
278
39
305
656
10
ELCO - ABEA
0
215
0
422
637
11
Tinkoff Team - La Datcha
0
238
85
305
628
12
Evonik - ELKO
15
50
100
443
608
13
Los Pollos Hermanos
0
40
0
566
606
14
Polar
0
53
0
475
528
15
Sony - Force India
0
45
0
473
518
16
King Power
28
127
0
321
476
17
Team UBS
0
52
2
421
475
18
Grieg-Maersk
0
164
22
198
384
19
cycleYorkshire
0
40
0
341
381
20
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Pro Cycling
0
106
23
186
315
21
Jura GIANTS
2
45
18
203
268
22
EA Vesuvio
6
61
0
181
248
Overall Ranking
So how does this month affect the overall ranking? Well, at the bottom we still have Jura GIANTS who had another low scoring month and look to be set in 22nd.
It’s about the same for Lierse who also don’t seem likely to still change position.
Grieg is the last of the trio that seems doomed to relegate for quite some time, it’s hard to see them leave 20th place.
But then it gets really close! There’s only 56 points from 19th to safety, but for now UBS is in big trouble as the fell under the line this month after being among the lower scoring teams.
Sony – Force India had a decent month and it was nearly enough to stay over the line for now, but they miss 17th place by 6 meagre points.
And this means the chickens actually leave the relegation spots with only one month to go! Los Pollos Hermanos now have a realistic chance to stay in the division, their manager hardly expected that pre-season.
Another team that left the relegation spots (mostly due to Dombrowskis Vuelta result) is Gazelle. But they only have a cushion of 162 points to the relegation zone and also are the only one of the contenders with 2 RD less left in October, so it will be a nail-biter between those four teams.
cycleYorkshire tumbled down to 15th all the way from 8th this month, but with more than 500 points to 16th (and more than 650 to the relegation ranks) should be safe.
Cedevita stays in 14th, but there’s still room for small improvements.
Polar is another team which fell out of the top 10 and it seems unlikely they’ll be able to re-enter there in the remainder of the season.
Aker – MOT rose to 12th, but this is also probably the top-end of where they could end this season.
The actual fight for the top 10 starts with Fastned in 11th. They only have a 3 point deficit to Xero in 10th. Puma is another 100+ points in front of those two and with all their top puncheurs those three seem to have some scoring potential left.
So Indosat Ooredoo in 8th is actually in danger of falling out of the top 10.
The contenders for the overall podium start with King Power in 7th. They might have a gap of nearly 400 points to 3rd, but with Praha still coming their TT heavy setup might still propel them up there. The same obviously goes for EA Vesuvio in 6th.
Even further up in the rankings (but probably with less chances for the podium) are Tinkoff and ELCO – ABEA in 5th and 4th. And they are only separated by 1 point!
So who is on the podium right now? In 3rd we have the best team of the month, Carlsberg! They probably won’t have the top scoring potential in October, but maybe their gap of nearly 250 points to 4th could actually be enough to keep them up there.
Rabobank climbs back to 2nd this month and it’s hard to see them still miss the podium. But it’s even harder to see them rise a place as Evonik – ELKO enters the final month of the season with a lead of more than 550 points.
Guess who’s back, back again? Herklotz’s back, tell a friend! The German dominator used the Vuelta to climb all the way up from 29th to the overall lead this month. And it’s hard to see someone still dethrone him as he still has Lombardia to get over 2000 points. Pedersen finally lost the lead after September and could even fall of the podium in October as Areruya in 3rd and Wirtgen in 4th and Lopez in 6th are just about 200 points behind him and probably have some better scoring opportunities left. Farantakis has lost his 3rd place and though he’s only 5 points behind the podium at the moment it’s hard to get him back there. Kudus, Per, Lecuisinier and Bernal complete the top 10 for now, but none of them seems to be safe yet.
We are indeed not where we expected to be at this point in the season. Theoretically, with the races coming and the riders we have there, staying in should be realistic. But theoretical points and actual points are far from the same
Vuelta was decent, SAA wasn't. Can't say this wasn't the expected outcome from this month's races, although I had calculated a ceiling of about 400 for the Vuelta, so can't complain too much. Good thing is we're still fighting to stay in the division. With Praha still to go, it is still not impossible. However, things need to go very well for us to be able to stay ahead of two of UBS, Los Pollos and Gazelle.
Wow, kind of unbelievable to look at those results. At the beginning of the year, I made a "win PT" goal because I figured we would be closer to the relegation zone and might as well maximize our sponsor money last offseason. Now, it looks like we had a realistic shot at winning our standings goal if we had just gone for the top 5 one instead. Truly crazy. To be the highest scoring team at the Vuelta finishing 8th on GC is also wild in its own way. We brought a squad there to flood stage results, but I could have never imagined it would go so well. AKA and Aranburu absolutely killed it.
The wages for Skjelmose, Aranburu, Gregaard, etc. are not going to be fun to navigate in the offseason given how much they've overperformed, but for now we have to enjoy the moment. Aranburu at close to 800 points is a success story for all the years we've invested in him. Gregaard and Skjelmose homegrown riders too. We're Top 3 in the PT going into the final month of the year. With the races that are left, it's very unlikely we can hold, but maybe a top 5 is possible. Vesuvio should dominate Praha and leapfrog us. At least this year we bring Norsgaard though who has a shot to at least score some minor depth points.
I'm not really sure if and how "near miss" points work for sponsor goals, but to the extent 3rd of 4th would provide some, we have to do what we can to hold on.
Thanks for the update!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
