There has been only one race since the last update, but it’s been the final one of the season and thus the decider for all the questions still open.
With Herklotz winning it’s no surprise Puma also came away with the most points. Aker – MOT and Xero made up the podium both in the race and in scoring. The latter had to gain some points to jump Fastned for the overall top 10 and they gained some, but just some, as the Dutch came in 4th in Lombardia. Will it still be enough for the Kiwis?
Lombardia Ranking
Pos
Team
Giro di Lombardia
1
Team Puma - SAP
276
2
Aker - MOT
201
3
Xero Racing
182
4
Fastned
164
5
Gazelle
149
6
Polar
132
7
Tinkoff Team - La Datcha
121
8
Cedevita
102
9
EA Vesuvio
97
10
Indosat Ooredoo
92
11
ELCO - ABEA
90
12
Jura GIANTS
87
13
Rabobank
86
14
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
81
15
Evonik - ELKO
75
16
King Power
73
17
Grieg-Maersk
68
18
Los Pollos Hermanos
59
19
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Pro Cycling
56
20
Sony - Force India
45
21
cycleYorkshire
40
22
Team UBS
40
Overall Ranking
With only one race since the last update we will leave everything that wasn’t really at stake for the respective managers to explore for themselves and concentrate on the more important questions in the grand scheme of things.
First of all the top of the rankings: MAL didn’t have a good day and probably gave his manager some unnecessarily hard time. But in the end all of the top 5 scored within 24 points, so the big pre-season favourite made it to the line. Big congratulations to Evonik – ELKO for winning the PT title this season!
EA Vesuvio ends its existence with a 2nd place. Rabobank takes the final podium spot after a really strong season.
There also haven’t been any changes in 4th to 7th, but then Puma jumped Indosat Ooredoo for 8th as has been expected.
It was really close between Xero and Fastned in many races this season, they also were only 14 points apart before the final race and came close there as well. But in the end the Kiwis had the better end by 4 points and managed to finish in the last top 10 spot.
Behind those two Valters great Lombardia brought Aker – MOT back to 12th because cycleYorkshire only scored participation points.
So now to the last big question left: who will be the fifth team going down? Los Pollos Hermanos went into the season finale in the best position and they were able to defend 16th for another year on the highest level. In the end a surprising 5th from Aleotti saved the not-reigning-champions-anymore Gazelle who actually also came within 6 points of the Mexicans. And that means Sony – Force India is going down after putting up a heroic fight all season.
Herklotz went into the final month as the overall leader and he countered a strong outing from Wirtgen in Praha by just winning Lombardia, putting himself back in the lead with well above 2000 points. And both of them will be available in Free Agency to fight for a new record contract. The final podium spot goes to Pedersen who might also become available, so transfers will probably be carnage.
The only other change in the top 10 is Vansevenant climbing to 10th.
Will be crazy when top 2 riders from PT enters Free Agency, what a season to promote to PT with a big wage budget!
Would also like to congratulate LPH and Gazelle with staying up on last day, hardbreak for Abhi and Sony. But looking at the bright side I look forward to racing against you!
Missing the top10 goal by 4 tiny points is tough. Guess we can count this as succeeded....
Congrats jandal. Couldn't have been much closer in Lombardia and here I guess. Now a hard time considering the off-season changes needed.
Phinney/Wellens not getting younger. Vansevenant alone with support of Hooydonck/Vesely won't be enough.
Unfortunate to see Sony going down. They surely will come back stronger but never nice to go the long way.
Also congrats knockout. Huge title win there. Good to see you did beat SN. Not that I hadn't liked it for him neither but better to see it going to an active manager really. Well deserved surely.
Congratulations to knockout on the well deserved win and congrats to Nemo and DD on staying clear in the relegation battle. For us a mixed bag this season. It was incredibly fun to have Kudus as a true top tier rider and taking our first ever GT win, but in the end I think his wage was our undoing. Probably could have found a few hundred points with an extra 200k of wage cap. So back to PCT we go, as is tradition
I think I'll just skip out on transfers this time. It's just a big waste of time for me and everyone else gets to find a better place to spent their money. Win-win?
Congrats to knockout on the long awaited title and to everyone who had a successful season. Commiserations to the relegated teams, especially our friends at Sony.
Thank you to everyone providing ranking updates through out the season.
Kind of a bummer announcement, but the scores for Lombardia are not correct! Will be updated soon...
Indeed, when I looked at the Lombardia scores, my first thought was "wait, did Puma get some penalty points?"
So I think we just made the 4,000 points... Still bad, and way below expectations of course. It was always going to be tough, but I didn't expect us to be so far away. I guess that's what you get when last year's Top 2 scorers get about 550 points less (combined), that's massive. Both Groves and Schmid weren't advantaged by the new version, that's for sure.
Otherwise, it's definitely a lack of quality as well - in particular Theuns' 700+ points missing really hurts. Add complete lack of results in hilly-TT stage races, and you quickly get those roughly 1,200 points that are missing.
So it's most likely going to be the continuation of our rebuild this offseason, and I guess our availability list won't be short (which is pretty much usual after a relegation I guess). With our current Swiss core, I do however think that PCT is the best suited division for us; it might take many more years to get a PT-ready team again. We'll see.
Huge congrats to knockout on the long awaited PT crown! Definitely a well-deserved win, even though it was closer than I (and many others) expected. Some changes (game version, RDC) didn't work out in your favour, but at least we had a cool fight (almost) until the end
For me, the biggest surprise is Rabobank, which I had as a relegation candidate (looks like I don't understand anything about MG, I know ^^) - but wow, what a season! Big congrats to alex as well!
Commiserations to the teams going down alongside us, but I'm sure they'll have good chances to bump back!
