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Sauber Petronas Racing Team HQ
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 11-12-2015 18:56
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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@SN
yeah, hopefully I won't have too many problems downsizing the squad, I think getting all the riders I want loaned out and still getting under both wage cap and loan cap will be the biggest problem for me. Renewals could easily make or break my off season so I've got to hope they go smoothly for me to stand a chance of finally getting through a transfer season still on something close to resembling Plan A.
@Eden
I was kinda expecting/ hoping that after our conversation last transfer season. I'm hoping to be able to keep them on minimum wage or close to it but if not I'll just release them to be picked up from FA.
@Avin
I'll look to get his wage down as best I can for anyone interested as I'm sure you won't be the only one chasing him.
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 11-01-2016 23:34
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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2016 Jersey
A.K.A. “Sometimes It’s Blinding In The Race”
Christmas and New Year really hit my plans hard it seems, having not had any posts pre stored I’ve only just got back into the swing of things and ben able to start getting updates pre written again, this being the first of them.
Anyway getting to the topic at hand it’s that time of the year where we call a press conference to unveil our Jersey for the upcoming season. We are doing this pre-renewals for a change as we have received our jersey back from our designer and want to offer an extra incentive to our riders ahead of the upcoming season and to make them extra motivate to sign on with us for another year.
The A.K.A. part of the title is exactly what we are hoping to do, showing off our beautiful new kit as we aim to promote straight back up.
Everyone here at Sauber Petronas want to send a massive thank you to Deksel for designing our kit again this year and doing such a fantastic job on it. Managing to include all the little changes we wanted compared to the original design to give us something that not only looks good but should stand out and includes a small nod to our fans and home bases.
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 12-01-2016 05:49
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4505
Joined: 05-10-2010
PCM$: 900.00
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Loving the jersey.
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 09-06-2016 00:59
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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Rider Renewals Results & Availability
A.K.A. “Hey, Must Be The Money”
It’s been a long off season here at Sauber and recently we have just taken the executive decision on who is getting their contract renewed for next year and who isn’t. In some cases it wasn’t an easy decision to make but we are happy with the outcome and are happy that we have managed to keep the core of the squad together. We’ll start off by going over those that have been released and will be looking for a new team next year from the Free Agency market.
In total we have released 8 riders as we look to trim the squad down to fit within the 20 rider maximum limit that the CT has following our relegation last year.
The 8 unlucky guys to not have their contract’s extended are:
| Last name | First name | Fl | Mo | Hi | TT | Sta | Res | Rec | Cob | Sp | Acc | Fi | DH | Pro | | Alizadeh | Hossein | 67 | 76 | 72 | 62 | 73 | 67 | 70 | 50 | 61 | 70 | 65 | 67 | 60 | | Ashgarzadeh | Alireza | 64 | 66 | 73 | 53 | 70 | 67 | 68 | 51 | 60 | 66 | 61 | 68 | 54 | | Jiriakov | Dimitri | 68 | 74 | 71 | 68 | 70 | 70 | 71 | 55 | 67 | 63 | 66 | 62 | 68 | | Krizek | Matthias | 70 | 74 | 75 | 66 | 72 | 71 | 75 | 52 | 67 | 76 | 75 | 62 | 66 | | Rohregger | Thomas | 68 | 75 | 68 | 72 | 70 | 72 | 68 | 52 | 57 | 65 | 63 | 63 | 72 | | Rusli | Amir Mustafa | 68 | 74 | 68 | 62 | 65 | 71 | 68 | 60 | 54 | 59 | 60 | 73 | 62 | | Salleh | Mohammed Zamri | 67 | 53 | 70 | 51 | 65 | 65 | 63 | 57 | 71 | 71 | 60 | 63 | 53 | | Wöhrer | David | 66 | 75 | 74 | 64 | 68 | 72 | 72 | 56 | 66 | 73 | 75 | 70 | 63 |
5 of these guys have been with us since our first season, of these the 2 Iranians have now been replaced by riders from our focus nations and we are sad to see Jiriakov and Rusli leave considering how long they have been with our side and wouldn’t rule out going for them late into the transfer window if we had space and they were still available but unfortunately we had to take the hard decision to let them go as we try and get the squad down under the limits imposed by our new division. The fifth one, Mohammed Zamri Salleh has been released as we believe that he can no longer fulfil the role we originally signed him for and that his spot on the roster could be better filled.
The 3 Austrians only joined us last year and whilst they were all amongst our more successful riders last year we knew when signing them we wouldn’t be able to justify keeping them beyond the 1 year knowing full well we were more than likely to relegate and that we wouldn’t let them steal a spot on the roster from the guys we have coming back from loan.
Moving on to those we renewed, these are the guys we are looking to sell and there are only 4 names here.
| Last name | First name | Fl | Mo | Hi | TT | Sta | Res | Rec | Cob | Sp | Acc | Fi | DH | Pro | Wage | | Drucker | Jempy | 74 | 60 | 65 | 68 | 75 | 71 | 72 | 77 | 74 | 75 | 67 | 79 | 74 | €200,000 | | Pranata | Jimmy | 71 | 63 | 73 | 62 | 70 | 71 | 73 | 62 | 66 | 65 | 74 | 61 | 62 | €50,000 | | Suryadi | Dadi | 68 | 74 | 72 | 63 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 53 | 61 | 73 | 72 | 64 | 61 | €50,000 | | Zardini | Edoardo | 69 | 76 | 77 | 67 | 70 | 66 | 66 | 68 | 72 | 68 | 72 | 74 | 72 | €175,000 |
Of these 4 we expect Drucker and Zardini to be on the radar of a few teams and the 2 Indonesian riders should be of interest to other teams focussing on Asia and might even end up riding in their home country next year.
We have 6 riders that we have renewed with that in an ideal world would need a PT loan to help them max out as that’s not something we are able to do for them whilst we are in the CT, and they are as follows:
| Last name | First name | Fl | Mo | Hi | TT | Sta | Res | Rec | Cob | Sp | Acc | Fi | DH | Pro | Wage | | Ahmad Zamri | Muhamma Afif | 69 | 73 | 69 | 73 | 70 | 73 | 73 | 52 | 59 | 69 | 71 | 59 | 73 | €50,000 | | Chavanne | Gabriel | 73 | 58 | 63 | 65 | 70 | 74 | 66 | 57 | 74 | 74 | 53 | 67 | 80 | €50,000 | | Hofer | Andreas | 71 | 58 | 64 | 76 | 73 | 70 | 66 | 55 | 63 | 68 | 74 | 64 | 76 | €70,000 | | Mundle | Benedikt | 77 | 59 | 64 | 53 | 68 | 71 | 66 | 62 | 59 | 69 | 79 | 72 | 53 | €50,000 | | Scarponi | Giacomo | 56 | 71 | 63 | 60 | 61 | 64 | 68 | 50 | 50 | 54 | 76 | 66 | 60 | €50,000 | | Wahyudi | Nandra Eko | 64 | 71 | 74 | 61 | 65 | 68 | 70 | 51 | 57 | 65 | 70 | 64 | 61 | €50,000 |
We believe all 6 of these riders have something to offer any team that wants to take them on loan.
Ahmad Zamri could be some mountain support or part of a TTT train and has the bonus of bringing along the National TT jersey with him, Chavanne should be able to compete for top 10’s in PT prologues despite not yet being maxed, Hofer would be a strong part of any TTT train, Mundle could be a key rider to chase down breaks for sprinter’s, Scarponi has a lot of attacking notion in him and with the Giro having a stage finish in his home nation he would be particularly up for attacking on that stage should he get the chance to ride it and finally Wahyudi could be a nice rider to draft in as support for any puncher’s you might have.
And finally everyone else that was with us last year has been renewed, we don’t want to comment on the availability of these riders but unlike those above we won’t be actively looking for sales or loans for them.
| Last name | First name | Fl | Mo | Hi | TT | Sta | Res | Rec | Cob | Sp | Acc | Fi | DH | Pro | Wage | | Awang | Azizulhasni | 64 | 52 | 52 | 70 | 67 | 62 | 71 | 55 | 79 | 83 | 61 | 59 | 70 | €50,000 | | Forcellini | Luca | 67 | 70 | 74 | 67 | 70 | 65 | 70 | 52 | 61 | 72 | 58 | 57 | 59 | €50,000 | | Hugentobler | Gregory | 70 | 68 | 75 | 58 | 70 | 69 | 68 | 69 | 56 | 76 | 77 | 68 | 58 | €60,000 | | Kung | Stefan | 66 | 76 | 76 | 66 | 69 | 68 | 67 | 60 | 63 | 68 | 73 | 78 | 66 | €75,000 | | Manan | Anuar | 68 | 53 | 60 | 57 | 71 | 67 | 77 | 59 | 78 | 78 | 55 | 62 | 57 | €50,000 | | Mat Senan | Mohammad Saufi | 69 | 75 | 71 | 67 | 74 | 71 | 70 | 51 | 58 | 70 | 65 | 59 | 67 | €50,000 | | Muhlberger | Gregor | 64 | 62 | 68 | 58 | 65 | 61 | 64 | 51 | 67 | 69 | 72 | 63 | 60 | €50,000 | | Othman | Muhamad Adiq | 69 | 68 | 76 | 56 | 73 | 70 | 66 | 58 | 54 | 76 | 65 | 55 | 56 | €50,000 | | Salleh | Mohamed Harrif | 70 | 55 | 59 | 57 | 73 | 65 | 77 | 58 | 80 | 80 | 59 | 68 | 71 | €50,000 | | Schurter | Nino | 67 | 72 | 75 | 61 | 67 | 71 | 66 | 55 | 66 | 71 | 67 | 80 | 61 | €60,000 | | Weiss | Martin | 68 | 61 | 71 | 60 | 70 | 68 | 67 | 59 | 71 | 70 | 66 | 67 | 67 | €50,000 | | Zafferani | Marco | 69 | 50 | 58 | 63 | 71 | 67 | 69 | 70 | 67 | 66 | 56 | 60 | 63 | €50,000 | | Zoidl | Riccardo | 69 | 74 | 73 | 76 | 71 | 68 | 72 | 56 | 61 | 69 | 75 | 59 | 72 | €55,000 |
*Disclaimer* We have not yet looked to see if it is possible to raise Zafferani and Weiss up a level ourselves or if they will need a PCT loan to do that.
Edited by sammyt93 on 09-06-2016 01:17
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 09-06-2016 01:08
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4505
Joined: 05-10-2010
PCM$: 900.00
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Looks like you had a very busy renewals period, hope things went the way you wanted.
sammyt93 wrote:
| Last name | First name | Fl | Mo | Hi | TT | Sta | Res | Rec | Cob | Sp | Acc | Fi | DH | Pro | | Pranata | Jimmy | 71 | 63 | 73 | 62 | 70 | 71 | 73 | 62 | 66 | 65 | 74 | 61 | 62 | | Suryadi | Dadi | 68 | 74 | 72 | 63 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 53 | 61 | 73 | 72 | 64 | 61 |
I have a feeling we may be needing to have a chat in a few days time 
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 09-06-2016 01:22
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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Eden95 wrote:
Looks like you had a very busy renewals period, hope things went the way you wanted.
sammyt93 wrote:
| Last name | First name | Fl | Mo | Hi | TT | Sta | Res | Rec | Cob | Sp | Acc | Fi | DH | Pro | | Pranata | Jimmy | 71 | 63 | 73 | 62 | 70 | 71 | 73 | 62 | 66 | 65 | 74 | 61 | 62 | | Suryadi | Dadi | 68 | 74 | 72 | 63 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 53 | 61 | 73 | 72 | 64 | 61 |
I have a feeling we may be needing to have a chat in a few days time
Things went smoothly for us, only took 2 rounds, even if we did end up some way over the wage cap it shouldn't be a problem to get back under it as selling the 4 I've singled out will manage that.
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 10-06-2016 00:41
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4505
Joined: 05-10-2010
PCM$: 900.00
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That's good, I look forward to seeing what you have planned during transfers.
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| Margh Norway |
Posted on 10-06-2016 01:11
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Sprinter
Posts: 1507
Joined: 23-07-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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As discussed last post season there is this one guy I'll make an offer for.
Wish all the best for the coming year and a swift way back to PCT racing!
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 10-06-2016 08:27
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2907
Joined: 15-07-2007
PCM$: 300.00
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I think we'll meet this season as well, either in dialogue or in transfer battles |
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 24-11-2016 02:20
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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Midseason Recap
A.K.A. “We’re Halfway There”
We have now reached the halfway point of our season and so far things have been going fairly well for the team.
As of the end of May we are sat in 7th in the rankings and despite having used the most race days so far out of all teams we are confident that we will end up in the promotion picture come the end of the season.
The year started well for us with one of our newly maxed riders Gregory Hugentobler securing 4th place in our first race of the season at the Clasico San Sebastian, he also then went on to win the Benelux Challenge in our first stage race of the season and go on to top the CT Individual rankings, being our first rider to ever top an Individual ranking.
Moving into March we only had one race there and it was our season Lowlight. By the end of Stage 5 we were sitting pretty in 4th, 7th, 13th and 18th in GC which would have been a good result for us but then Stage 6 happened. What happened on Stage 6 you might wonder? Well there was a mass crash where Maccagli had to abandon injured and Zoidl, Kung and Mat Senan all dropped down the GC rankings after losing over 2 and a half minutes, tumbling down the 15th, 18th and 29th on GC with the only consolation being Othman jumping up to 14th (from 18th) before he would then lose time himself on the following TT and drop to 23rd meaning we only got a 15th GC out of the race.
April started much better with Mohamed Harrif Salleh winning the Busan GP on the opening day of the month for the first Classic victory in the team’s history.
Next up was our home race of Langkawi, unfortunately Kung crashed on the opening Mountain stage but Mat Senan really stepped up on the second one and managed to secure our top 10 goal there regardless with a strong 8th place GC finish and Salleh had a strong showing in the sprints winning a couple of them, albeit behind the breakaway so failing to get a much sought after stage win in the process.
May is the most recent month to be completed and it again saw us racing a lot as Zoidl came back from training for 1 day to secure 11th at the Windhoek TT whilst we made our annual trip to Japan and only C1 outing of the season where Othman traded his Malaysian NC for the KOM jersey for 3 days before finishing 2nd in that competition. We then travelled in 2 squads to the Euskal Bizikleta and Tour of Scotland which overlapped and it’s safe to say that the squad in Spain did better than the one in Scotland. Our trip to Scotland wasn’t particularly bad with Salleh picking up our first and to date only stage win of the season but it was overshadowed by the magnificent campaign in the Basque Country where we finished 4th, 6th and 8th on GC as well as taking the Youth Jersey and Teams competition.
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 24-11-2016 09:59
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 9099
Joined: 13-03-2013
PCM$: 2100.00
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some very nice recap here, and I share your optimism about your team! Eventhough I wouldn't have done it before the season, but you've got so many surprising points from your team's depth that I can't deny that it worked out fantastic!
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 24-11-2016 22:11
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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Croatia14 wrote:
some very nice recap here, and I share your optimism about your team! Eventhough I wouldn't have done it before the season, but you've got so many surprising points from your team's depth that I can't deny that it worked out fantastic!
Thanks, I knew going into transfers that my side looked fairly good depth wise and it's nice to see it come to fruition. I also like that I was right to think the Home Grown guys could get us a top 10 in the rankings which I think should be enough for promotion as, at least the top 7 will go up as far as I know and there will probably end up being a few more spaces by the end of the season that I am not currently aware of.
I did have a shortlist of guys that could help push us closer to the top 5 and fit nationality wise but couldn't manage to get any of them in pre season so I'll have to hope they are available at the end of this season, as should we promote we'll need their help to stay up, even if we do have a good platform to build on thanks to the depth.
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 07-09-2017 13:54
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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2017 Jersey Reveal
A.K.A. “All Of The Beautiful Colours Are Very, Very Meaningful”
Another Year, Another Season, Another Beautiful new Jersey designed by Deksel.
Some things just don’t change here at Sauber Petronas Racing, Although saying that we do have a new sponsor in KTM who have provided us some nice new X-Bows to reward our riders for their hard work and effort and these new toys should help them relax in down time between races and over the off season.
After the success of Zoidl last season and the impending return of Hofer to a prominent role in the team, coupled with Muhlberger winning the Austrian NC they have decided to throw their support behind us and help us keep these upcoming Austrian stars happy.
Speaking of NC’s I guess it’s only right that we show them off here as well, starting with the aforementioned Austrian NC that Muhlberger will be wearing.
He isn’t the only one to claim and NC jersey for us though as we also have Benedikt Mundle taking the Liechtenstein Double again this year;
Ahmad Zamri who returns to us after a year on loan at Aegon Lavazza is the Double Malaysian NC and we are hoping he will be able to show off this snazzy little number a few times over the course of the season.
And finally we also have the Sammarinese TT jersey to showcase thanks to Andrea Enrico Maccagli
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 07-09-2017 15:00
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4505
Joined: 05-10-2010
PCM$: 900.00
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Loving the jerseys!
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 28-09-2017 01:19
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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2017 Goals and Calendar
A.K.A. “It’s What We Aim To Do, Our Name Is Our Virtue”
Righto, time for another Sauber Petronas Racing press release, and this one features 2 key topics, the reveal of our calendar and our Goals for the season.
Both of these topics were hotly deliberated by the management team here, with some races on our calendar being no brainers and some being more controversial picks that not everyone agreed with.
First off we are going to unveil our goals for the year,
| Top 5 | Team Standings | CT | | Win | Benelux Challenge | C2HC | | Top 5 | Bayern Rundfahrt | C2HC | | Top 5 | Herald Sun Tour | C2 | | Total | Stage Wins | 10 |
We believe that a top 5 in the Team standings might be a little bit beyond our level this season due to the strength of riders that have dropped into the division, however we think that if we get some luck this season then we might not be too far off as a lot of the strongest riders dropping into the CT tour this year are climbers which is a terrain we are not that focussed on for the first time in our team’s history.
The team’s only win goal this year is for Gregory Hugentobler to try and defend his title at the Benelux Tour, and we thought that if he managed to win there last yer then he should be able to repeat that again this season, however at the time we didn’t count on Lucas Manuel Gaday and Bob Schoonbroodt to be in the CT or for Guilleme Van Kiersbulck either but we think he would likely be dropped on the hilly stage which we are hoping will be the more decisive stage rather than the cobbled stage, which we have brought new signing Arnaud Grand for if that is the far more decisive one.
The top 5 goals at the Bayern Rundfahrt and Herald Sun Tour are both set with Andreas Hofer in mind, who is returning to us this season after a rather successful year on loan at Team I-Gen Festina last year and we expect him to be able to fight for a top 5 in the TT’s, with both races being 4 flat stages and 1 TT we expect him to have a chance at completing the goals, even if he is only the joint sixth strongest Time Trialist in the division it would only take a good day from him or a poor one from one of the guys above him for him to get into that top 5.
The last goal is to get 10 stage wins from our stage race outings, to do this we would need to eclipse the 8 stage wins racked up in 2014, but we think we stand a chance at it this season because we managed 4 last year, and we expect Chavanne to dominate the prologues this season and hope he can add 3 stage wins from them, then we would just need Salleh to convert 3 of his many stage podiums last year into stage wins or for our other guys to step up and take one on the other terrains.
With the Goals now revealed we are going to go on and talk a little bit about our Calendar. As a CT team we have to race all the C2HC days, and we will obviously be attending our home races in the form of Langkawi and the San Marino Hill Classic, both of which are C2 races this year.
A key feature of our calendar this season is returning to races that we did well at last season, for example our season opener the Classico San Christobal where Hugentobler managed a magnificent 4th place in last season’s opener, The Euskal Bizikleta where we had an amazing team performance to claim 4th,6th and 8th on GC as well as the Youth Jersey and the Teams Classification or our goal race the Herald Sun Tour where Salleh won a stage and took the points jersey last year, albeit with a CG goal this year as well as wanting to contest the sprints again.
The addition of Arnaud Grand now gives us a very strong card to play in the Cobbled Races, where he is a top 5 Cobbler in the division, and as such we have decided to step up to C1 level racing a few times during the year to give him a shot of scoring some points against the bigger boys and to help us gauge how he would fare as a leader should we promote, and whether it is worth investing further into his development or waiting for Bohli to max out and have him lead us on the cobbles in future with Grand as a super domestique.
So without further ado we can now reveal the full calendar for the team, however the riders’ individual programs will be kept in house for now as we don’t want them to get distracted by media asking for comments on their goals whilst they are busy preparing for the season ahead and trying out their new equipment.
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 28-09-2017 15:33
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 21854
Joined: 01-05-2012
PCM$: 400.00
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Cool to see we'll be meeting at quite some races 
Good luck with those targets, top 5 will be tough but you never know |
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| Bushwackers |
Posted on 28-09-2017 18:53
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Sprinter
Posts: 1907
Joined: 07-02-2009
PCM$: 200.00
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Thanks for the read! Hopefully Grand will be a good addition to your points scoring this year, he will be fun to follow since hes a talent all of us have had our eyes on for years now. As will Chavanne, that was a smart decision to pick a stage win goal since he is definitely capable of winning all the CT prologues. Salleh is solid in tis division as well and I think you definitely have a good team. Of course top 5 is going to be hard for any team in this division with the current level of talent, but Ill be rooting for you this year!
By the way I missed commenting earlier but those jerseys are great.
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 06-10-2017 00:17
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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Ian Butler wrote:
Cool to see we'll be meeting at quite some races
Good luck with those targets, top 5 will be tough but you never know
Thanks Ian, I'm looking forward to facing against you for what I think is the first time, hopefully we can share the success when we do meet, even fi that means Diaz takes the GC whilst we take the sprint stages.
Bushwackers wrote:
Thanks for the read! Hopefully Grand will be a good addition to your points scoring this year, he will be fun to follow since hes a talent all of us have had our eyes on for years now. As will Chavanne, that was a smart decision to pick a stage win goal since he is definitely capable of winning all the CT prologues. Salleh is solid in tis division as well and I think you definitely have a good team. Of course top 5 is going to be hard for any team in this division with the current level of talent, but Ill be rooting for you this year!
By the way I missed commenting earlier but those jerseys are great.
Thanks, I'm glad to bring Grand in, hopefully his wage will go down a little over the next couple of years and then Bohli will be maxed and a good in team rival for leadership status. I might end up with one for Flat cobbles and one for Hilly cobbles but don't think I'll end up being able to train both.
Hopefully we can have a successful season and promote to the PCT in time to vie for Müller out of free agency next year.
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| Bushwackers |
Posted on 06-10-2017 00:23
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Sprinter
Posts: 1907
Joined: 07-02-2009
PCM$: 200.00
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Hopefully we can have a successful season and promote to the PCT in time to vie for Müller out of free agency next year.
Yeah... Hopefully not 
Just kidding, I hope you do promote, I'd like to see what kind of PCT squad you can put together.
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 09-10-2017 02:56
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3634
Joined: 03-07-2012
PCM$: 300.00
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January Preview
A.K.A. “And This Is How It Starts”
As the new season draws closer it seems only fitting that we give a little preview of how it starts for us, and with the squad set to attend 3 races in the first month we are hoping to hit the ground running.
The first of these is a return to the season opening race the Classico San Cristobel.
We return here with good memories, after Hugentobler managed to stun the division by starting his season off in style and taking 4th place in the opener, just narrowly missing out on the podium.
This year he returns again, stronger and as part of a triple threat looking to try and repeat last year’s stand out performance. We are hoping we might be able to place 1 guy in the top 10 and think that would be a reasonable expectation of the squad, however we can dream of another shock like last year as even if the field seems to have strengthened Gregory appears to like this race considering his performance last year and now has 2 similarly strong riders to mark out others attacks with him who could also perform if they follow the right guy.
The race also marks the debut of our new talent Kilian Frankiny who we have high hopes for as a future Mountain leader for us/ second in command to Ahmad Zamri in the races that have a TT in them.
| Flag | Firstname | Lastname | Role |  | Gregory | Hugentobler | Triple Threat |  | Nandra Eko | Wahyudi | Triple Threat |  | Muhamad Adiq | Othman | Triple Threat |  | Riccardo | Zoidl | Helper | | Nino | Schurter | Helper | | Muhamma Afif | Ahmad Zamri | Helper |  | Luca | Forcellini | Free Role | | Kilian | Frankiny | Talent |
As you can see by our decision on our helpers we have brought pretty much the strongest squad we can to our opener in the hopes that the boys can secure an amazing result for the second year in a row and the squad will start the season as it means to go on.
The second race on our calendar is the Vuelta al Tachira.
The mounatainous stage race may not seem like it suits our specialities much at first glance but if you take a look at the squad we have assembled for this one then you will understand why we are here.
| Flag | Firstname | Lastname | Role | | Muhamma Afif | Ahmad Zamri | Leader | | Mohamed Harrif | Salleh | Sprinter | | Gregory | Hugentobler | Stage Hunter | | Nandra Eko | Wahyudi | Stage Hunter | | Muhamad Adiq | Othman | Stage Hunter | | Azizulhasni | Awang | Leadout | | Luca | Forcellini | Free Role | | Mohammad Saufi | Mat Senan | Helper |
As you can see we have brought a team that is here almost exclusively for stage wins. We have Ahmad Zamri as a GC leader and Mat Senan will be there to help support and teach the youngster but we are not expecting much from him in such a packed division and will only be hoping that he can score a top 20 GC.
The majority of the team is focussed on strong performances on individual stages where we bring Salleh and Awang to contest for the stage win on the 4 flat stages. It worries me a little that we only have 2 sprinters here as it means the third leadout man won’t be very strong, however considering how long the race is we are hoping that other top sprinters have stayed away and that we can pick up at least 1 stage win this way and start the ball rolling in our 10 stage win goal.
The rest of the team is made up of Luca Forcellini who will be looking for breaks and to help support the Triple Threat who are here to contest the 2 hilly stages, hoping they have enough between them to upset the CG men on the day.
It may seems strange to bring Salleh here and not the Great Ocean Road Classic but considering he only came 23rd last year at the C2HC rated event we felt it was worth missing an event he previously struggled to perform at to attempt to get our Stage wins goal off to a good start.
Speaking of which we can reveal the Great Ocean Road Classic is our third and final event in January.
The Great Ocean Road Classic is an event which we have struggled at before, with Salleh’s 23rd last year being our best result here to date. This is why we have decided to switch it up this year and bring a side fronted by Anuar Manan instead. Usually Salleh’s leadout, Manan is being given the keys to the new look sprint train in this classic and will be lead to the line by the loaned in Danilo Wyss, making his debut in a Sauber jersey, and Gabriel Chavanne, who is fresh back from a loan at Evonik last year, and also making his first appearance of the year just like the Malaysian fastman heading the squad for this flat classic.
This race also marks the Debut of Grand and Lecourt de Billot alongside the previously mentioned Wyss and everyone apart from Frankiny will be making their first appearances of the season, meaning every member of our squad will have taken part in at least one race in January.
| Flag | Firstname | Lastname | Role | | Anuar | Manan | Leader | | Gabriel | Chavanne | Leadout | | Danilo | Wyss | Leadout | | Andreas | Hofer | Helper | | Arnaud | Grand | Helper | | Marco | Zafferani | Attacker | | Kilian | Frankiny | Talent |  | Olivier | Lecourt de Billot | Talent |
Edited by sammyt93 on 09-10-2017 03:53
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