Last season I introduced a small tool, including a few different key measuring assets, such as the average OVL level of the team deducting the stagiares, aswell as giving the team stars based on top level and depth in all different aspects - and finally a subjective prediction. These combined in a metric created the overall prediction for the Pro Tour, which was pretty close to the real results.
The top 3 was spotless aswell as number 5. So 4 out of 5 teams in the top 5 were predicted exactly how they were positioned. Also 3 out of 5 relegated teams were predicted correctly - Although Metinvest were predicted horribly wrong.
This season I have tried refining the metrics to get even better - especially with the difficult middle part of the teams. Included in the final verdict is also a combination of other Pro Tour managers guesses.
We start out by taking a look at which teams have spent the most money on training their riders this season:
Pos
Team Name
Training
1
Becherovka - Petrof
€ 5.250.000
2
Evonik - ELKO
€ 3.850.000
3
Aker - MOT
€ 3.700.000
4
Pokerstars.com
€ 3.575.000
5
Vesuvio - Accumalux
€ 3.500.000
6
Jayco'z Cycling Project
€ 3.300.000
7
Team Puma - SAP
€ 3.200.000
8
Team I-Gen - Festina
€ 2.900.000
9
Grieg - Eftel
€ 2.700.000
10
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
€ 2.100.000
11
Tinkoff Sport Academy
€ 2.000.000
12
eBuddy
€ 2.000.000
13
RBC Pro Cycling
€ 2.000.000
14
Red Bull - Huawei
€ 2.000.000
15
Orange - KLM Cycling
€ 1.700.000
16
Movistar - US Postal
€ 1.600.000
17
BPost - Vlaanderen
€ 1.550.000
18
Aegon - Lavezza
€ 200.000
19
Bouygues Telecom
€ 175.000
20
Metinvest-Dacia
€ -
21
Gazelle
€ -
22
Pendleton's
€ -
As always, one might say, Becherovka-Petrof finds a way to top the rankings. Last season they were 3rd, this season easily on top. Teams like Aker-MOT, Vesuvio and I-Gen - Festina are also regulars on the top 10 of these money spending rankings, but this season we also see promoted teams like Evonik - ELKO, Team Puma-SAP, Grieg - Eftel and Kenya Airways - Dimension Data spending a lot of money to get on their PT feet.
Next we will take a look at the average age of the teams. To make it fair, stagiares have not been counted, as they are not eligeble for that many racedays:
Pos
Team Name
AVR age
1
Team Puma - SAP
24,7
2
Aegon - Lavezza
25,0
3
Red Bull - Huawei
25,8
4
Bouygues Telecom
26,0
5
Becherovka - Petrof
26,1
6
RBC Pro Cycling
26,2
7
Team I-Gen - Festina
26,3
8
Evonik - ELKO
26,6
9
BPost - Vlaanderen
26,6
10
Aker - MOT
26,7
11
Vesuvio - Accumalux
26,7
12
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
26,8
13
Jayco'z Cycling Project
26,9
14
Metinvest-Dacia
26,9
15
Orange - KLM Cycling
27,2
16
Grieg - Eftel
27,3
17
eBuddy
27,4
18
Pendleton's
27,5
19
Movistar - US Postal
28,1
20
Pokerstars.com
28,2
21
Tinkoff Sport Academy
28,2
22
Gazelle
28,4
We welcome the promoters to this list as we have them in both ends of the ranking. Team Puma - SAP aswell as Aegon - Lavezza are easily infront of the regular PT teams, where Red Bull are also well on the top. Last season saw a demoter with the youngest team, and we hope this is not a story to repeat itself. Aker-MOT was 2nd last season, but have plummeted to 10th. The PT top 3 of last season were all in top 5 of the youngest teams, but this season they have all dropped to be between 5 and 10. Are your team as young and talented as you imagined? Perhaps not!
Next up is the average OVL stat of each teams - yet again, no stagiares included!
Pos
Team Name
AVR OVL
1
Team I-Gen - Festina
74,63
2
Pendleton's
74,24
3
Orange - KLM Cycling
74,22
4
Team Puma - SAP
74,06
5
Becherovka - Petrof
73,99
6
Gazelle
73,98
7
Aegon - Lavezza
73,97
8
Tinkoff Sport Academy
73,89
9
RBC Pro Cycling
73,88
10
Vesuvio - Accumalux
73,79
11
Aker - MOT
73,77
12
eBuddy
73,75
13
Jayco'z Cycling Project
73,72
14
Metinvest-Dacia
73,71
15
Movistar - US Postal
73,52
16
BPost - Vlaanderen
73,50
17
Pokerstars.com
73,25
18
Evonik - ELKO
73,00
19
Red Bull - Huawei
72,92
20
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
72,87
21
Grieg - Eftel
72,76
22
Bouygues Telecom
72,67
Last seasons Pro Tour winner was also topping this list last season, and deducting Metinvest it gave a very good indication as to where the teams would end up in the final PT rankings. This season Team I-Gen - Festina are yet again topping the ranking, while Vesuvi have dropped significantly. Pendleton's made a surprise rescue last season, but have developped drastically from 15th to 2nd! Also Orange have improved from being 2nd to last to being 3rd from the top. Best of the promoters are Team Puma-SAP. At the very bottom are a few of the promoters aswell as PT regular, Bouygues Telecom. Looking at last season, two of those in the bottom fire demoted - Are your team amongst those you could potentially be in for a very long season - while the best of the bottom 5, last season - Metinvest - Did much much better. So perhaps not!
Last season saw us implementing some stars that were based on the riders ability to win races, but also given for depth. This season is no different - And you can see the metric by looking at last seasons preview. One team have the best combination of stars by quite some distance, but others seem fairly even matched - Will this have anything to say?
Pos
Team Name
Stars
1
Team I-Gen - Festina
39
2
Team Puma - SAP
35
3
Jayco'z Cycling Project
35
4
Orange - KLM Cycling
33
5
Tinkoff Sport Academy
33
6
eBuddy
33
7
Becherovka - Petrof
32
8
Vesuvio - Accumalux
32
9
Aker - MOT
31
10
Metinvest-Dacia
31
11
Pokerstars.com
31
12
Movistar - US Postal
30
13
Pendleton's
29
14
Aegon - Lavezza
29
15
Gazelle
28
16
RBC Pro Cycling
28
17
Evonik - ELKO
28
18
Red Bull - Huawei
28
19
Grieg - Eftel
28
20
BPost - Vlaanderen
26
21
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
26
22
Bouygues Telecom
26
Last season's Pro Tour winner, Team I-Gen - Festina are topping the list with promoters - Team Puma - SAP closing in on second. Yet again Bouygues Telecom are last. Last season the top stars were Becherovka, Festina and Vesuvio - And those teams ended up 3, 1, 2. Also at the bottom 5 were 3 relegators. Where do you rank? What do you think? Maybe the stars need heavily refining next season!
Now to the subjective part. Me predicting the final outcome. I will say very little about my prediction as they are - as said - very subjective and as such doesn't fit very well into the previous parts:
Pos
Team Name
1
Tinkoff Sport Academy
2
Becherovka - Petrof
3
Aker - MOT
4
Team I-Gen - Festina
5
Vesuvio - Accumalux
6
Jayco'z Cycling Project
7
Metinvest-Dacia
8
Gazelle
9
Pokerstars.com
10
Orange - KLM Cycling
11
Movistar - US Postal
12
eBuddy
13
Bouygues Telecom
14
Team Puma - SAP
15
Pendleton's
16
Evonik - ELKO
17
Aegon - Lavezza
18
RBC Pro Cycling
19
Red Bull - Huawei
20
BPost - Vlaanderen
21
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
22
Grieg - Eftel
Tinkoff have not really presented themselves just yet, so why are they on top? And why are Becherovka-Petrof second? Well, call it a hunch. Call it knowledge of certain managers level of planning. Call it whatever you feel like. The bottom five have a few teams that are regulars on the lists above, and maybe there is a pattern, that a smart manager needs to change for the team to avoid relegation.
The final part before the metrics-created end prediction is the weighted position of each team, made by other Pro Tour managers. The list looks like this:
Pos
Team Name
1
Team I-Gen - Festina
2
Becherovka - Petrof
3
Metinvest-Dacia
4
Vesuvio - Accumalux
5
Tinkoff Sport Academy
6
Aker - MOT
7
Orange - KLM Cycling
8
eBuddy
9
Pokerstars.com
10
Pendleton's
11
Gazelle
12
Jayco'z Cycling Project
13
Bouygues Telecom
14
Team Puma - SAP
15
BPost - Vlaanderen
16
Aegon - Lavezza
17
Evonik - ELKO
18
Red Bull - Huawei
19
RBC Pro Cycling
20
Kenya Airways - Dimension Data
21
Movistar - US Postal
22
Grieg - Eftel
Here the previous winners are topping the list, but it may well be down to people expecting the usual things to happen, and what could be easier than just looking at last season, while positioning the bottom place survivors aswell as the promoters at the bottom. We have to look as low as 11th to see our first promoting team, Gazelle, while at the very bottom we only have Red Bull and Movistar presented.
Well. Now you have seen the lists - You have not been presented with the maths behind it. And you won't be either! Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. Last season it worked fine, this season things have been tweaked! So it is definately for you to conclude whether or not you wish to believe in things. Here goes!
So every ranking apart from age and training sees us in the bottom three, which doesn't bode well
Still think we can stay up, after all last year most people predicted us mid-table. We usually manage to pull out a few surprise results out of nowhere as well.
Thanks for the detailed preview SotD, an interesting read.
I like SotD. To everyone else, you're drastic underestimating us: 21st... seriously?!?
My team might not have flashy superstars, but I have viable/average point getters in every terrain. Plus I'd like to think our depth isn't too bad either.
Guess we'll just have to wait and see. Thanks for the analysis!
Big thanks for your preview, great analysis! 2nd place would be a fantastic achievment. My goal is top 3, my dream is top 1. And tbh I am quite surprised my team has such a good AVR OVL, with the amount of unmaxed riders I would expect us a little bit lower, interesting.
I disagree with your ranking of us - I don't quite think we will be relegated as we have a team leader for almost every single race day. Even if we are relegated I can't see it being much below 18th. Where we sit in the average ranking makes the most sense to me.
Thanks for the preview though. Certainly I agree that you should be among the top three and you stand a very good chance of winning overall.
Being able to combine the lowest average age of all teams with the 4th highest average OVL and the second highest star value is basically everything I've been working towards in the last 4 seasons.
14th in the subjective predictions is a spot I would take any day of the week, 11th in your summary is definitely the upper end of what we can achieve with luck.
RBC, Kenya, Red Bull and Grieg should end up below us, so all we need to do is outscore one other team, but obviously there's racing to be done and not purely statistical comparisons.
We were underrated last year and we are underrated again this year, we can deal with that and smile later.
JK, i would probably take 6-7th spot, but i dream about top5, as i think Metinvest is only top10 team, who actually got stronger with its lineup.
Tinkoff winning is prety crazy prediction. They are good, but not that good, with basically two point scorers only, even when one of them is massive star.
Deffo interesting to see this, comparing stats by stats, generally gives a good indication on where different teams stand, also interesting with a subjective ranking from the reigning champ!
