We reach the last race of the season having already confirmed promotion, barring some miracle. Marcel Wyss, puncheur extraordinaire, leads us out, and we were hoping he could finish off our season in style. Third place was still within reach, with us being just 8 points behind Kulczyk.

We didn't do much for most of the race, not joining the breakaway, and letting better equipped teams handle the chasing. The break were caught on the last circuit when the attacks started, but not before a couple of the favourites had already got away. Wyss led the chase for some time, but he stayed in the larger peloton as seven riders were out ahead with around 7.5 km to go. The action played out ahead of our leader, and while a couple more riders were brought back, Vichot won from the earlier attack. Wyss managed to finish the fastest from the bunch to claim 6th place.



Costa, as with a lot of other hilly races this season, went unnoticed but ended 20th to pick up a few more points.

1	Arthur Vichot	Kulczyk - DMTEX	5h54'12
6	Marcel Wyss	Philips - Continental	+ 1'01
20	Jaoa Costa	Philips - Continental	+ 2'14
33	Romain Bardet	Philips - Continental	s.t.
37	Rob Ruijgh	Philips - Continental	+ 3'09
39	Albert Timmer	Philips - Continental	s.t.
55	Tom Leezer	Philips - Continental	s.t.
59	Enrico Battaglin	Philips - Continental	s.t.
172	Miles Scotson	Philips - Continental	+ 13'41

Wyss pulls off another good result to end our campaign on positive note. Kulczyk's win means we had to be content with 4th in the standings, but we'd have galdly taken that at the start of the season. A word of appreciation for Costa, who handed over the mantle of leader in the hills to Wyss early on the season, but contributed important points throughout. A true team player.

Signing off from the last of our race reviews this season. We'll be back with a season recap and a statistical review soon...

The Philips - Continental team management is delighted to announce that the team have secured promotion to the PCT via the automatic route. The team exceeded our expectations of a top 6 finish, with 4th place in our first year of existence.

The management would like to thank all the sponsors for their help this season and would hope that this successful partnership can thrive in the future. The management and the team are looking forward to riding in the higher division already and plans are already being put into place for a competitive season.

Race	Category	Goal	Result
Geraardsbergen-Bosberg	C2HC	Win	2nd
Benelux Challenge	C2HC	Top 5	3rd
Great Ocean Road Classic	C2HC	Top 5	18th
Euskal Bizikleta	C2	Top 10	6th
Team Standings	CT	Top 10	4th

*Green means Goal Achieved. Red means Goal Failed.

We managed to achieve three out of our five goals which should act favourably when the MGUCI decides our budget next season. Our most ambitious, but achievable goal, that of stage win in Geraardsbergen - Bosberg, was failed by a single position. Our most unlikely goal, that of a Top 10 finish in Euskal Bizikleta, was achieved with ease. Barcelona Classic was the only goal race where the team disappointed. Benelux Challenge was a no-brainer as a goal, given it was a home race in the CT. We comfortable achieved the Top 10 rankings goal in the division.

Our best race of the season was the Benelux Challenge, which was also a goal race for us. The team stepped up and delivered a dominating performance despite Drucker's misfortune's early on.

Tour du Faso was another race featuring the cobbles where we did very well. A 100+ return from a race of only three stages was more than we were expecting.

Perhaps the most important result, and the race which brought us the highest PpRD was Course de Solidarnosc, the penultimate race on the calendar. This result effectively sealed our promotion to PCT.

While stage races dominate the top of the table, our most successful one day race was Geraardsbergen - Bosberg, by a comfortable margin. That too, was a goal race, but it was a win goal and we missed it by a single position!

We did not have a lot of 'bad' races, so to say, and only returned empty-handed from one, Gent - Wevelgem. This was actually a race where we had decent expectations, but the team failed to get Drucker or our sprinters into a good position. San Marino Hill Classic was one of the rare races where Wyss wasn't competitive in the hills, while the Great Ocean Road Race just blew up in our faces!

We saved our best month for last as we breached the 300 points mark in a single month in October. August was our best month in terms of PpRD, with a whopping 27.50, mostly thanks to Benelux. The lowest we were ranked all season was 9th place, which was worrying at the time. As it stands now, our worst position all season would also have seen us promote! April was our worst month, but thanfully we bounced back well with a huge May, which set the tone for the rest of the season.

Our strength was supposed to be our depth and that is highlighted here. Four riders in the top 30, another in the top 50, with Per just outside and a total of nine riders inside the top 100 shows that our points were well spread out through the team.

Also interesting is the fact that every rider contributed, with Leezer's 2 points coming in our penultimate race. That feels like an amazing achievement and a real win for our scouting department.

No surprises that our top points-scorers were also our top points earners per RD. Marcel Wyss was the personification of consistency with a near 6 PpRD! Krieger is third on both lists highlighted so far, but 77% of his points came in one race, and four race-days, in Solidarnosc. Battaglin and Bogdanovix were the only disappointments for our team.

Our best piece of transfer business is well and truly highlighted in this table and one that will be hard to beat in our team's history perhaps. We paid Wyss a measly 190 Euros per point he scored! Van Emden's importance to the team, in terms of value for money is also evident. Same is the case with Costa. Bogdanovics appears low on this list as well, while it no surprise that Leezer is at the bottom of the pile. Our stagiare Hofstede was a good pickup, scoring 8 solid points.

The full list of achievements can be viewed here.

The team management are delighted announce that both our title sponsors, Philips and Continental Tyres, have agreed to continue sponsoring the team for the coming season. Both sets of sponsors are extremely pleased with the outcome of our first season in the MG.

As a part of our sponsorship with Philips, our Team HQ continues to be in Amsterdam. We hope our continuing collaboration can take Dutch cycling even further and help develop it's future.

Continental Tyres were generally very positive in our contract extension discussions. However, they have put up a clause to recruit more German riders into our squad for the coming season. We have agreed to take that up. Continental will also continue to be our tyre suppliers, in association with Zipp, who will provide the wheels.

We are very pleased to have sorted out our sponsorship early for next season. Riding in the PCT, with it's level of competitiveness and uncertainty will be a major challenge. Having tied up our finances now, the team can concentrate fully on team building, and if required, rebuilding. Our first season of existence went like a dream. For now we hope we don't wake up very soon.

AbhishekLFC wrote:
@Jandal: No way