Jose has done something quite special he has proved a lot of people wrong in saying he couldn't cope with the big boys. His climbing here at the Vuelta was brave and brilliant - the other grand tour specailists did not know what had hit them.

Again Jose rode slightly within himself early on as we had a couple of tense mountain top finishes in the long but slight mountains in the hot south. This race had just the one long flat TT and Jose lost a fair amount of time there. But we knew there was a super tough day in the Pyrenees to come and Jose had that one circles out to give a go.

I don't think some of the other favourites knew what to do when Jose went very early on the last climb. We felt there was really nobody left to chase but the main favourites and even then you felt there was going to be some guys shirking the chasing duty. Jose gained so much confidence from destroying the entire field on that day, it was definately the moment the race was won.

We were not so confident on Bolo Del Mondo - it was the beginning of a tough week, however when no one could follow at the end of that day we felt the had a really great chance of holding on for the GC win.

The team were pretty much on their knees, unfortunately Bruno Santos finished outside the time limit. But Jose was still feeling confident that he had the measure of everyone else. He just went for it on the final run in, I didn't think a stage win was possible but to finish this race off at the front underlined the win and I think will stop many calling this a fluke which is possibly how this could have been seen at one point.

Just great resulst all round at the moment, hoping for things to continue in this purple patch with Jerry Copp going all out in France in the Dauphine and the Tour.

Really am delighted that Florin got the win there - he has done a good job in French races this year and after some years of domestique work elsewhere it was nice for him to get the chance to ride for his own chances.

Jerry is disappointed in missing what was one of his season targets in winning that individual test. It was always going to be difficult but to be behind Dave Zabriskie is surprising. He just wasn't quite in the best shape with the chrono being after some hard flat stages. These days that suits the GC boys or in this case ING who were riding high becuase of that opening team chrono win. Jerry is pleased with the team time trial work though - we have Fab to come in there so we could really challenge in the late season.

Bran really gave the breaks a go on a couple ovf occasions and went quite nicely on the King of the Mountains classification and was a bit unlucky not to take a higher stage placing. The GC boys were just too eager I guess - Stevie M also really kept going through the race really nicely.

Indeed the races now are perhaps less prestigious barring perhaps Lombardia - for us we have a number of nice races here though. Jose goes in Columbia and the mountain classic - Fab also has the Northern Europe Tour which has always suited him. We also have team timetest at Duetschland Tour and the one day race to look forward to - Jerry is goin to Tazzy too. As ever we have solid teams going to the stage races in Norway and Germany so we have moments to look forward to.

I recall fondly racong our first season and coming across Jose at a low key stage race and he romped away with the main climbing stage taking minutes in the space of 4 or 5 kilometres. You could tell then the guy had dynamite in his legs and I always had a secret need to want to sign him after that. Here in South America was the ultimate indulgence, Jose just beat em all up until Amador and Machado had nothing left to give.

Some of the guys like Mestre have been with Jose throughout the year, they are the unsung heroes of this quite amazing year for him. The confidence is oozing of Jose he really is carrying himself like and absolute champion.

Jose has talked about looking into having another go at the Giro next year, he feels that this years course was not a good one for him and he hopes for a more mountainous version. We shall see I think he may want to look at returning to the tour. But this race is always likely to be a good one for him also. There is the GP Liechtenstien test, I'd love him to give that a good go this year.

Actually we do have quite an interesting final phase of the year with some nice targets. Gp Liehctenstien will be Jose's last blow out and then Copp and Canc have a few good races including that TTT section. Plenty to play for, I don't think we will be top five by the end of the year but we could be close.

I am pretty sure this could be Fabian's last year at the top, he may well move on to a new project next year, so this made this years TONE even more important. We knew the chrono's would be key for Fab, so we took it fairly easy in the cobbled stage and whilst Burghardt and Summerhill gained a lot of time there we knew we would haul them back against the clock.

After the fourth stage, we just had to try and keep a lid on things. However it did get quite hairy on the seventh stage, Fab had to work hard on that day and form alliances with other teams. He was hungry on the last day to take the stage win and show some panache.

The Duetschland tour proved a good training ground for the team chrono. To be honest ING are streets ahead at the moment in this discipline. Though we keep managing to edge out Bpost so I am hopeful we can perhaps look to be among the leaders in the single day team race. We have to work out how to beat ING somehow, not sure we can but we will have to try!

I think you have to take your hat off to the teams ahead of us on the teams standings. Vesuvio and Wikipedia are currently the two best teams when you consider the likes of the Schlecks and Phinney. I mean Andy showed he is the best climber in the world at the moment. Put a long TT in a stage race and Phinney is near enough unbeatable too.

Pokerstars and Becherovka have made massive improvements this year. Boonan and Bewley are just tremendous strongmen with great kicks. Bewley in particular is a complete superstar who with Phinney are set for massive careers. Good Energy for me have been a surprise, guys like Ponzi and their all round strength have really delievered. I didn't fancy sprinters at the beginning of the year but Rowe and Guarnieri have been good for them.

But we have also beaten many others behind us who all have fantastic riders so I have to be pleased with that and definately progress has been made this year with winning a Monument and a Grand Tour you cannot really beat that no matter where you finish on team standings.

It has given us something extra to celebrate in this latter third of the season. Jose Alarcon and Fabian Cancellara have produced but Jerry who really led the team chrono effort felt drained by the whole team time trial result. He came to Tasmania though in areally determined mood. It was a really competitive field including Trofimov and Phinney so this is a great indicator before the worlds for Jerry.

I am pretty sure we would like to invest in getting in some guys for the hilly stuff next year - we have had a good go at the cobbles and I feel we are getting there with the stage races. I will always have a good look at the stage racers, but in Jose Alarcon we feel we have got quite the nugget and he will very likely be staying.

Fabian Cancellara has been talking of stepping down a division for a bit and I think he could comfortably do so and still compete in some of the major cobbled monuments.

Jerome Coppel could possibly move on, he is very impressed by the Oz Cycling network but also feels that whilst our sponsors are French the language in the squad is predominately still English and he is uncomfortable with the culture here. I am hoping to find a place for him on next years roster as without him I am pretty sure Simply Markets will step away as a sponsor. We are confident that we could find sponsors in the Hispanic markets with Jose Alarcon as the figurehead however we would also love to continue the journey with Simply much may be decided in contract negotiations.

This year it feels as if we are starting to collect those really big wins. Our first year in the protour was great and we got some grand tour stage wins and nice classics. But it was really great to nail a really big couple of results this year. We knew Fab had it in him after lasts years double cobbled classic wins but to take one over the on fire Bewley was great - the Tour of Flanders was always going to be the toughest one for Boonan and Bewley.

Jose winning the Vuelta though was off the charts - yes it was the weakest Grand Tour in terms of startlists. Let's not kid ourselves Andy Schleck is the champion climber this year and Cunego was unbeatable in the Giro. But in the absence of these guys and Spilak, Pluichkin etc someone had to step up and I think Jose did it in spectacular style. His relentless attacking in the mountains was just fantastic.

Bottom line was that Bruno Santos just was nowhere near the quality required this year in the sprints. I don't think Juan Van Heerden worked out for us last year, but perhaps we should have kept Van Stayen? I don't know Jerry Copp didn't exactly set the world on fire either. Vantomme (QS), Van Stayen (Venchi) are both rejoined the protour next year so they will give a challenge to the likes of Bewley and Swift but it could be an area where we could challenge.

Yeah observing today you know Cunego, Valverde and Frank Schleck are getting a bit older so some of the hilly guys could get better joy. Trofimov has been the dominant force there with Hagen and Bakelants waiting in the wings. We shall see what we can find in the transfer market. I am not going to change my policy of going ultra nationalist I want success at the end of the day for Red Bull

I think Fabian will be leaving, I'd like to find him a good team though I am not going to rule out holding on to him in renewels and then looking for a fair price for him. I will be putting the feelers out for Coppel, though we may well give him another chance it really depends on the sort of race routes we get next year. Everyone else will be available, I think it is fair to say that we have asked almost everyone else bar Fab, Jerry and Jose to work for those three this year so if they wanted to leave for their own chances we would be unlikely to stand in their way.

Yeah we had come up with a branding concept of 'The Big Red Bull' which was quite exciting but in fact was a mirage for us slipping back to one sponsor and in cycling that can be quite dangerous for a team. I have come to enjoy the bull being there on every single car I drive, rider I manage, drink I drink, hell the damn bull is in everything I ever do. I wanted it to get engrained into everyones memory - but in truth that wouldn't have been a stable financial decision.

I was contacted early in the season coming out of the Badaling International by representatives of Huawei. I got the impression I was one of the last people they were coming to, we hardly made an impression on that race. However they came across very enthuasiastic so I kept them on speed dial. I hadn't thought much about it until the registration documents came through and I thought I would at the very least keep them in the loop.

Next thing I know the president of the company was on the phone and was really hoping to get involved in sponsoring the team.

It hasn't been the Red Bull way to focus on one nationality, I don't think Simply Markets ever understood that. They wanted 75% of the team to be French and that was not practical given the amount of French teams out there. I think we will have a look at some Asiatic riders for sure, in particular the Chinese riders. We of course had Kin San Wu a Hong Kong rider with us for some time, he was a great worker.

An independent artist known mysteriously as 'Cavendish-Fan' has designed a wonderful suite of jerseys and bike designs for our new sponsorship. This came through Huawei, they had worked with this guy before and had heavily recommended him. We have been blessed with some wonderful jersey and equipment designers in recent years, OlegTinkov's distinctive designs last year were a triumph also.

This year we will be quite easy to identify in a white based background - we also have a number of small sponsorship deals coming on board with us this year.

I was pleased to see Samo and Bodnar take their jerseys, Samo in particular pleased me last year and is strongly pencilled in for a contract renewel barring a nice offer from the Eastern Euro bloc. Bodders could well leave to one of the Polish teams, but nice for them to have a national champ. But whilst these two are possible leavers Destribois Phounsavath is a bit of a poster boy for us in South East Asia and we are hopeful he can continue to develop next year.

This year was a massive learning curve for Alex, he really was a climbing water carrier in every sense of the word. He aided Jose in his races at Colombia and Liechtenstein and worked hard in other stage races such as the Dauphine, Romandie, Norway, Tour of the Basque country, Tirrano Adriatico and Tasmania. He got a good grounding in the hilly classics too with Lombardy, Amstel Gold, Grand Duche and Fleche Walloonie amongst his races completed. He should kick on nicely next year and has the Laos double champion status, I think this can inspire him!

Recently announced parcours for TONE and the new Het Volk race have come out - it feels as if we should be looking hard at keeping hold of Copp and Fab. Haiwai are fairly non-plussed about Jerry Copp, but are pressing me to keep hold of Cancellara who is second only to Jose Alarcon as a marketable star of the team. We shall see...

With the new transfer tax, I think rider trades become more lucrative. I include Jerry and Fab in that bracket.

Fab may well look for one more year in the PT, though he hasn't ruled out stepping into the PCT ranks. An ambitious team could quite likely secure his services and compared to say Boonan his 2015 wage should look tempting.

Jerry feels his chances of PT success are limited - having been a couple of times to the Tour, Paris Nice and Dauphine he feels it maybe time to do an 'Ignatiev' and shift down a level and lead a promotion campaign. Alternatively he may look for a team that can foster his team time trial ambitions.

Lower down I feel a number of riders should have the opportunity to move on to ride for their own chances. Unlike other more selfish managers I don't just keep riders on as domestiques on low wage hell forever without giving them the chance to lead lower down. I get a real kick out of seeing former riders winning races on the PCT and CT circuit. Elia Viviani for example is a guy that could be quite prolific at CT level, Ricardo Mestre could be a decent mountain man.

Of course I could keep some guys for the new PCT wildcards but I feel they really are a bit of fun for whoever are workhorses prove to be in the next year.