A new season is underway and it's time for the first PT update of 2026! January is a short month with only 3 races, the Tour of Tasmania, the Tour of the Middle East (shared with PCT) and the Tour of Qatar, but it still gives us the first hint of who came out of the off-season in good shape. 13 race days for the teams that went to the Middle East, 9 for the rest, so keep an eye on the PpRD column before anyone panics. Same as last season I will start at the bottom and work our way up to the top.
At the bottom we find Aker - Ab InBev with 103 points. Arnaud De Lie is the top scorer with 33 points, and nobody else got past 10. Just above them Fastned on 133 points, where Michel Hessmann with 41 points is the best of the bunch. Both teams only had 9 race days, but a projected score of around 2000-2700 points is not where you want to be. Early days, but they need to wake up before the classics arrive!
Not last, in fact only 3rd last! Ekoi - Renault are 20th with 188 points. They went to the Middle East as well, but only got 22 points out of it. Most of the points came in Qatar where Markus Kopfauf was 10th in the final time trial and Alexys Brunel picked up 37 points over the month. 14,46 points per race day is the second worst in the division. Could they make last place predictions wrong, or is this their best position all year?
Xero Racing sit in 19th with 229 points. Rune Herregodts carried them with 119 points after 10th in Tasmania and 6th in the Qatar time trial. Just above we find Gazelle in 18th with 238 points, and that is almost a one-man show. Giovanni Aleotti won stage 2 in Tasmania, wore the leader's jersey for a day and ended 8th overall. 158 of Gazelle's 223 points in Tasmania came from the Italian puncheur, while Qatar only gave 15 points.
Los Pollos Hermanos are 17th with 246 points, and 149 of them came in the Middle East where Sergio Higuita finished 3rd overall after 3rd on the final mountain stage. A nice podium, but there was not much else to cheer about this month. Hunter Valley Cycling are 16th with 278 points. Michael Storer was 12th in Tasmania and Kaden Groves was 3rd on stage 1 in Qatar, but they are spread out with no rider above 65 points.
Polar take 15th with 280 points. Most likely expected more, but Mads Würtz was only 5th in Tasmania and gave them 139 points there, but Qatar was a quiet one with only 52 points for the team. With 9 race days they still project to 5600 points, so they are fine for now.
Cedevita are 14th with 323 points. Jasper Philipsen won the opening stage of the season in Tasmania and wore the first leader's jersey of 2026, while Dusan Rajovic was 2nd on stage 1 in the Middle East. MOL Cycling Team are 13th with 350 points. Kristoffer Halvorsen was 3rd on stage 4 in Qatar and 9th overall for 110 points, and Robert Stannard was 2nd behind Aleotti on stage 2 in Tasmania.
cycleYorkshire are 12th with 377 points. Gabriel Cullaigh won the first stage in Qatar and held the leader's jersey for 3 days before Dainese took it. He ended 5th overall with 262 points. Just above them we find Tinkoff - La Datcha Team in 11th with 383 points. They scored in all 3 races, but without a big result anywhere. Pavel Sivakov was 7th in the Middle East for 97 points, and the rest is spread out with Dmitry Trakhov, Nikita Razumov and Alexander Vlasov. 29,46 points per race day is not great though.
My number 1 precition guess, Assa Abloy are 10th with 403 points, and 332 of them belong to Alberto Dainese. He was 3rd on stage 1 in Tasmania, won stage 3 in Qatar and took the leader's jersey after stage 4. Then the final time trial happened, he lost 47 seconds and fell to 4th overall. He still took the points jersey, so not all bad. The rest of the team combined for 71 points.
King Power are 9th with 460 points. Filippo Ganna won the final time trial in Qatar, Ethan Hayter and Chun Wing Leung were 4th and 5th on the same stage and King Power won the team classification in Qatar. 367 points in that race alone, only Evonik scored more there. Indosat Ooredoo are 8th with 470 points. Eddie Dunbar came 2nd in Tasmania only 3 seconds behind Wirtgen, and with Ryan Mullen 4th in the time trial they took 425 points in the race. Qatar only gave 45 points though.
DK Žalgiris are 7th with 501 points. Max Kanter won stage 2 in Qatar and ended 7th overall, Rokas Kmieliauskas was 4th in Tasmania and young Thibau Nys took both the mountain and the youth jersey in Tasmania. A very solid start, and with 55,67 points per race day they are right up there with the best.
Specialized are 6th with 524 points. Tom Wirtgen won the final time trial in Tasmania and took the overall win, the points jersey and the team classification with it. 465 points in Tasmania is the biggest score by any team in a single race this month! Qatar was a different story with only 59 points, but you can't win them all.
Last year they surprised us, this year we expect it. Rabobank are 5th with 553 points from only 9 race days, and 61,44 points per race day is the second best in the division. Remco Evenepoel was 3rd in Tasmania, only 4 seconds from the win after losing time in the time trial, while Olav Kooij was 3rd overall and best young rider in Qatar. Maikel Zijlaard added 79 points with 10th in Qatar. Last season's great story could continue this year!
Carlsberg - Danske Bank take 4th with 592 points. Frederik Rodenberg was 2nd on 2 stages in Qatar and 6th overall, and in Tasmania Niklas Eg and Gyasi Sulvaran were 9th and 11th for 250 points to the team. The Middle East only gave 52 points, but this was a great team effort.
They are known for having a deep team and getting results for it, and once again this year. ELCO - ABEA are 3rd with 621 points. Ryan Gibbons won the first stage in the Middle East and took the points jersey on countback ahead of Lopez, and Laurens De Plus finished 8th overall. In Qatar they had 2 riders in the top 9 of the final time trial and Stylianos Farantakis ended 8th overall. Depth all over the place!
Bolt - Eesti are 2nd with 739 points. Andres Camilo Ardila was 2nd in the Middle East, only 17 seconds behind the winner, and Bolt won the team classification there. In Qatar Fernando Gaviria won stage 4, was 2nd on stage 5 and ended 2nd overall, just 8 seconds from the win. 2nd overall in both stage races they rode, and 331 points from the Middle East is the best score from that race.
That makes only 1 team left and it is no big surprise. Last years winners are used to being on top. Evonik - ELKO start the season the same way they ended the last one, on top! 878 points, 2 stage race wins and 407 points in Qatar alone. Miguel Angel Lopez attacked 4 km from the line on the final stage in the Middle East, won the stage, the overall and the mountain jersey. In Qatar Salem Kemboi won stage 5 and held on to the overall with 2nd in the final time trial. Ivo Oliveira added 109 points with 7th in Tasmania. 67,54 points per race day and a projected score of 12157. Can anyone stop them this year?
Top scorer and the first leader of the season is Salem Kemboi with 368 points after his overall win in Qatar. Just behind we find Tom Wirtgen with 340 points from his win in Tasmania, and Alberto Dainese completes the top 3 with 332 points. That final time trial in Qatar probably cost Dainese the lead here as well.
Miguel Angel Lopez is 4th with 296 points from the Middle East, which makes Evonik the only team with 2 riders in the top 5. Fernando Gaviria is 5th with 295 points, only 1 point behind Lopez. The rest of the top 10 is Gabriel Cullaigh, Olav Kooij, Eddie Dunbar, Andres Camilo Ardila and Frederik Rodenberg. Qatar was the biggest race of the month and it shows, 6 of the top 10 scored most of their points there.
Just outside top 10 we find Max Kanter in 11th, and Remco Evenepoel in 12th with 164 points. Could he have been in top 5 if not for the final time trial in Tasmania?
It was a good month for us with two podiums in two races. If we can keep it up like this we are definitely going to be in the mix for another podium by the end of the season.
We expected Way more from Qatar, about what We Got from Tasmania and better from Middle East. When all is combined we delivered aproximately “on par”. Given our situation prior to Qatar, however we really was looking forward to try leading the rankings, for a brief moment. And that seemed very realistic if Farantakis had delivered just mediocre in Qatar.
Still a solid start to the month, but not quite the cushin we would have liked to see going into a couple of more difficult months. How we come away from the tripple-header could be an early indication as to whether we are expecting a top 10 of outside top 10 season.
Hard to really put a lot into our projections with only 9 RDs spent and only three races raced in total for PT teams but we're 10% towards survival already and that's a nice benchmark to look at!
Evonik with a scary start to the season in the first year of a reconstruction is dangerous as well!
Brilliant start of the season, couldnt have gone any better than that. That said, this was always going to be a strong month for us and everything below a podium at this point would have been a desaster.
Wouldnt be too shocked if we will be in the lead for some of the next months as well as this years schedule is super frontloaded for us
Already almost forgot how good Tasmania was to open the year, with Sulvaran almost matching his 2025 points total, and Eg more than half of his. I guess if you switch that result with Middle East, it's pretty much in line with our hopes and expectations, and Tasmania is a PT race, so even better. Rodenberg obviously carrying the torch from Qatar as well, though SKA is a bit behind his usual pace now already from missing out on the epilogue. Need him to win in Tirreno at least.
Way too early to look at standings, but definitely happy to have almost 600 points in the bank coming out of January, with our PpRD above last year's 38 before the cobbles season starts.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Thanks for the update, Heine! Tasmania was a miss for us, but Dainese delivered well in Qatar, which means our January overall was okay. In February we will introduce our other team leaders, so looking forward to see how that goes!
