Lots of racing in the past two months for PCT teams, with 10 races in February and March each - and we don't even include the PT wildcard races here. So we'll again have two separate period rankings first - which for the sake of readability only uses the teams' abbreviations - before presenting the current overall standings. Let's go!
Period Ranking: February
10 races in the second month of the year, whereof two in PTHC and C1 each, and three in HC and C2 each. And unlike what one could expect, the highest score of the month wasn't reached in the long PTHC Volta a Portugal - but In Juarez, where Red Bull dominated the competition. Volcanica weren't bad in Mexico, either, although they surely expected to win.
Scores in Portugal weren't bad, either, though, with Binance getting closest to Isostar, only 50-odd points behind. Lierse did a good job there as well. And in Ukraine, Amaysim got the most points behind the three dominant PT teams. Amaysim also were the best team in Samyn - not very surprisingly, given that they won it.
Otherwise, cobbles were mostly Bralirwa's terrain, winning (and getting the highest score) in Omloop and Kuurne. In Viana, however, HelloFresh took the win - and they had a good cobbles campain in general as well.
So, what's missing? Right, C2 racing. Binance took home the highest C2 score of the month from Catalunya - however, PpRD-wise, Minions' 39 points in Gent - Wevelgem are even stronger. Herning, on the other hand, was a bad race for PCT teams, despite the tiny startlist.
Overall, the division's top favorites from Amaysim were the strongest in February. Binance weren't that far behind, though - but after them there's a gap of more than 150 points! Bralirwa are next - and they should actually have been even higher, but Madrazo in Portugal and Stallaert in Samyn didn't quite deliver.
Red Bull are 4th, which is mostly due to Halvorsen's crazy show in Mexico. Strava round off the Top 5, never having been among the best teams, but always picking up some valuable points.
At the bottom, Project:Africa, Assa Abloy and Crabbe all scored less than 100 points - which still is somewhat strange to see for the latter in a cobbles-heavy month. 8 teams are between 100 and 200 points - but this obviously is at least in parts due to race day distribution, which is by far not uniform for all teams. We'll talk about RD usage in the overall rankings.
Por
Oml
Cast
G-W
Hern
Samyn
Cata
Ukr
Jua
KBK
Total
1
AMC
199
0
46
8
0
150
0
217
20
56
696
2
BNB
282
126
0
0
0
26
110
6
34
36
620
3
BRS
126
140
0
0
0
36
0
0
75
80
457
4
RBZ
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
123
326
0
449
5
SVA
0
16
47
32
0
119
0
0
195
18
427
6
HLA
0
134
87
0
0
101
38
0
0
51
411
7
CDB
183
66
0
0
0
87
0
0
25
46
407
8
LPU
231
82
10
0
0
22
0
0
35
11
391
9
VLF
0
5
0
0
0
0
0
6
267
0
278
10
SPR
0
0
64
0
0
98
0
69
5
38
274
11
TLT
69
75
64
8
0
8
0
0
0
33
257
12
CED
114
0
56
14
8
0
0
39
13
0
244
13
VOY
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
113
109
0
222
14
PFI
0
28
37
0
0
10
0
49
66
0
190
15
KMM
0
31
0
0
0
58
0
0
98
0
187
16
XR0
184
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
184
17
INO
32
0
0
0
0
0
7
0
131
0
170
18
MIN
0
0
36
39
0
5
0
0
84
0
164
19
GCT
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
37
122
0
159
20
ZIZ
0
5
0
0
0
0
0
38
113
0
156
21
P4E
0
22
0
0
0
7
0
22
63
0
114
22
CCC
22
13
0
2
1
0
0
0
49
0
87
23
AAB
0
38
0
0
0
0
0
0
45
0
83
24
AFR
0
0
0
0
0
15
0
16
0
0
31
Period Ranking: March
As in February, 10 races were done in March - 4 of them being usually low-scoring C2 ones, though. 3x C1, 2x PTHC and only one single HC race are left.
This time, the month's highest score indeed comes from a PTHC race, with Amaysim being the 3rd strongest team in Colombia and netting the only 200+ result of the month. They also dominated Great Ocean Road Classic with their surprise win - but besides those top results have zero points everywhere else. To be fair, they didn't race anywhere else, either...
So the remaining races gave the other teams some chances to shine - and Zara said "Thank you", topping both C1 stage races of the month - in Pais Vasco they share that honour with Lierse, though.
Sauber - a name that wasn't heard often so far - defied all the division's top puncheurs in Strade Bianche and took the win there. And in Lillestrom, HelloFresh finally triumphed over Bralirwa in a cobbled race to take the win.
C2-wise, Cedevita scored the strongest result of the month - close to 25 PpRD in a C2 race is a huge return for a PCT team! In Geraardsbergen, Minions successfully repeated their cobbles strategy, taking a good 37 points haul. Hilly classics Placci and Izola didn't go in the PCT teams' favor, though.
Overall, Zara were top of the division in March, mainly due to their combined Guadeloupe and Pais Vasco scoring. They also did a decent job in the PTHC races, which was enough to be the only team exceeding 500 points this month.
Lierse came pretty close in the end, with good racing mainly in the Spanish-speaking races. Cedevita round off the Top 3, despite a rather disappointing result in Strade. Jelajah surely made up for that, though!
Amaysim with their two races are still 4th, with Volcanica in 5th thanks to Guadeloupe and Colombia - although they once again missed out on the win in a sprinter stage race.
At the bottom, we have 5 teams below 100 points this month - which should be especially worrying for Strava and Project:Africa, who were the ones doing a decent amount of racing among those bottom 5.
In general, while we had a lot of teams between 100 and 200 points in February, we now have 8 between 200 and 300, which obviously is pretty bad news for those with low scores.
Bos
Guad
Jel
Vasco
GORC
Col
Plac
Stra
Izo
Lill
Total
1
ZIZ
0
184
0
197
51
87
0
0
0
0
519
2
LPU
0
83
0
197
0
151
0
9
0
38
478
3
CED
0
0
97
167
102
0
0
61
0
0
427
4
AMC
0
0
0
0
186
210
0
0
0
0
396
5
VLF
0
145
0
0
80
151
0
11
0
0
387
6
CDB
0
29
0
180
0
0
0
50
0
62
321
7
SPR
0
0
0
0
48
50
0
140
0
49
287
8
VOY
0
0
0
78
94
45
0
70
0
0
287
9
BRS
0
119
0
0
0
121
0
0
0
46
286
10
PFI
0
0
0
0
2
150
0
98
0
20
270
11
HLA
0
40
0
0
0
120
0
22
0
84
266
12
P4E
0
0
0
0
125
84
2
38
0
4
253
13
MIN
37
112
0
37
0
56
0
5
0
0
247
14
KMM
0
0
18
0
0
134
7
77
0
0
236
15
BNB
0
0
0
0
77
0
0
51
0
49
177
16
RBZ
0
97
22
42
15
0
0
0
0
0
176
17
TLT
4
0
0
89
0
0
8
23
5
12
141
18
INO
0
17
0
58
0
40
0
20
0
0
135
19
AAB
0
0
0
0
0
88
0
36
0
0
124
20
AFR
0
0
0
9
78
0
0
8
0
0
95
21
XR0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
82
0
0
82
22
SVA
1
0
0
0
0
48
0
0
0
0
49
23
GCT
0
0
0
0
18
0
0
0
0
0
18
24
CCC
8
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
8
Full Ranking
So, how do all those numbers translate into current rankings? Not unexpectedly, Amaysim have now taken the lead - and with a good margin already! While having used up less race days than their closest rivals, they have a solid 270 points advantage already - on a great 34 PpRD value!
Binance remain in 2nd place - which is also where they are currently projected to finish. Lierse look to finally have a shot at promotion - but a second view shows that they used almost 50% more race days than the leaders already, which is by far the highest RD value of the division. Still, those who are projected to finish ahead of them first have to transform potential points into actual ones...
Bralirwa were expected to do well in the early season - and compared to last year, 4th place might be rather disappointing. PpRD sees them in 4th place as well, though, so promotion definitely is possible. And the same holds for Carlsberg in 5th, although they're currently projected to finish 6th.
Behind HelloFresh, for example, who currenlty are 6th but have a good 25 PpRD value so far. The other teams who might surge up sooner or later are Red Bull and Zara, both having been efficient in their races so far.
At the bottom, things definitely don't look bright for Project:Africa. Sure, they have used up the least amount of race days so far - but they also have the lowest PpRD value. They will have to clearly step up to somehow reach safety! The same holds for all currenlty relegating teams, though, as all of Crabbe, Assa Abloy, Indosat and Gjensidige are projected to relegate - the latter only very narrowly behind Popo4Ever, though!
Given the size of the division and the diversity of race calendars, big jump between ranking updates are frequent especially at this stage of the season. The most improving team were Cedevita, jumping up 10 spots, while Zara and Volcanica with 9 spots gained were strong in the last two months as well. Just like Lierse, who jumped up from outside the Top 10 to a podium spot!
Crabbe and Gjensidige went the other way, both losing 14 places since the January update, and both dropping to the relegation zone even! Xero dropping from 4th to 14th might sound surprising as well - but when racing only 4 times and getting two (cobbled) zero pointers out of those races, that's what you get...
While his team overall might be slightly below expectations, Joeri Stallaert generally delivered and tops the division after three months. Surprisingly, Halvorsen currently is the top sprinter and is up to 2nd in the rankings - one tiny point ahead of Ahlstrand.
The stage racers come next, with Haig and Oomen in 4th and 5th. Especially the Aussie was very efficient so far, getting his 375 in just two races (and 9 RDs)!
With Bewley and Daniel we have two more cobblers (besides Stallaert) in the Top10, while Jakobsen and Vesely make it 4 sprinters. Add Bewley and Stallaert to that category and we're up to 6, by the way... Guldhammer rounds off the current Top 10 - and the puncheurs are probably waiting for more "true" hilly races!
Awesome to see us sitting in a great position with the lowest amount of RDs consumed in the top half of the table. And this is with 1 of our two C2 outings out of the way as well with Potocki doing his thing in Catalunya. With the 900 points already secured we're more or less halfway towards securing survival and if this scoring streak will be kept up then we might actually make our top 10 standings goal.
Daniel finally getting a win over a dominant Stallaert in Norway was a fantastic feat for him for sure. This period overall has been signified by the top sprinters stepping on to the stage for real, Halvorsen, Ahlstrand and Jakobsen all gathering solid amounts of points with Kennaugh falling to the wayside a little bit with some weaker performances that have left something to be desired.
Amaysim and Binance sorta just strolling along as expected at the top of the table while towards the bottom it is starting to look a bit dire for PA and Crabbe.
Thank you for the update Fabianski! Fun read, and great to have an idea of how things are going.
Everything's still early, and the margins are small, but we're at least in the promotion fight, even if we're slightly outside the picture on PpRD right now. Guldhammer's performances in Portgual and Pais Vasco are big reasons for that. Trentin's also been great (since Franceville) and very consistent. If we had gotten some points along with our victory in Hungary, this would be a phenomenal start to the year. As is, we've done pretty well pretty regularly, though we're still lacking standout results, and our best performances have unfortunately come in C1 with less to gain.
Individually, we're definitely gonna need more from AKA going forward. Guldhammer has exceeded expectations, but I don't expect him in the top 25 at year's end. Trentin neither. Our team is an ensemble production, and AKA is a big part of that ensemble. He blew a lot of race days in Juarez and Guadelupe, and he simply can't fail like that again if we're gonna have any chance at promoting. Those races are our big blemishes in the scoring chart, and we just can't have that and expect to promote.
The calendar will be changing for us soon, so it will be interesting to see how we fare as the terrain focuses swap. Trentin's got a few more classics coming up in April. Then going forward we're gonna see a lot more of our puncheurs (who have thus far mostly been stage hunters) and Lennard Kamna. Rasmus and Matteo have banked a lot, but our other leaders are gonna need to perform as well if we have any chance of promoting. And like I said, AKA is front and center.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
I don't think we've ever had that many racedays, we're over double of some other teams. Sure, we have all our C2 done, but our PPRD is still horrible. The good part is that Oomen and Novak still have some racedays to go, but there's also ToA we're supposed to be riding so that one will probably hurt a bit.
Highlights so far are Oomen's solid performances and Gamper beating Vanbilsen. Bonifazio and especially De Plus need to step up though.
Amaysim, Binance, Bralirwa and HelloFresh all looking set for promotion. Let's hope we can fight for that last spot. Thanks for the update!
Now this is going quite well with Haig and McCarthy not having spent too much of their race days! Obviously we were quite lucky in Portugal and at Great Ocean, too, which helps at this point of the season. Still some key races to come though.
I honestly expected us much lower with the failings of Cattaneo and Dennis, having to scroll way down the individual rankings to find the latter. Vesely and Sweeck keep the team afloat for now, but we need to step up. Who could've thought the few C2 cobble adventures are a highlight so far.
RD situation also doesn't look that good for us. And we're racing a lot again in the next months so we need that gap into the final months.
We started with a bad January. February was better, but still very meh. So we really needed that big scoring explosion in March to get in a more 'normal' position.
I'm not sure what the future holds. On one hand we got into this good position with lots of depth (7 riders in top 100) and some unexpected overperformances. On the other hand Beltran has been a disaster. So I guess this can go 3 ways:
1) Beltran wakes up with his scoring and the depth guys continue to do work. We perhaps push into the top 10 or at least secure the top 15.
2) One of Beltran or depth fails and we flounder in mid table mediocrity. Likely fail our ranking goal, but do enough to not relegate.
3) Both Beltran and depth fail and we're in the relegation battle.
A bit of a weird fact is that we're done with 8/10 C2 race days, which is maybe why we're on the higher end of used RDs. But our ppRD in C2 is 14.88, so having only 2 left actually might not be a good thing
what else is there to say? My team’s been fighting the game mechanics more than other teams so far this season. The jokes of TDU/HK/Guadalupe and then the abhorrent ‘luck’ of Vasco and Strade Bianchi have cost us dearly - 5 races we should have scored incredibly well in as we had the/one of the top favourites. We would have around another 400-500 points if we hadn’t been screwed which would put us comfortably in the top-10, so this is hard to take. I hope for a reprieve with the results, but at this stage I expect everything to end comical shit show.
Bit of a nothing February from us but a much improved March with the 2 GC wins bringing up the total points tally as well as improving the PPRD.
Jakobsen our best rider and up there in the Top 10 at the moment. He's been very good for us this season and he'll have to continue that way for the rest of the season if we want to be an outside chance for promotion.
Conci 15th in the rankings after his Pais Vasco win is massive too. Don't necessarily expect him to stay up there for the whole season but he's certainly got strong results in him.
Taaramae ended up supporting in Pais Vasco but was fairly disappointing in Colombia. Will need him to really step up in the next few races to prove his worth.
Cosnefroy and Thomas also have plenty of scoring opportunities in the middle-back end of the season in which I expect them to thrive and score well so we've got some things to look forward to!
Thank you for the update Fab!! Some riders across the division really yet to wake up.
We keep scoring in the midfield range every month and find ourselves in the midfield overall. Was expecting a little higher in the end of March rankings, but we do have RDs in hand over many teams, so I think the PpRD is around what I was hoping to be. March was really good and hope we can continue with that form.
Benoot has been a great signing so far, with Choi also doing his part . Wasn't expecting to see an inconsistent Minali as our third highest scorer though! Guess that we shows, we still have potential to improve much further.
Thanks for the excellent update Fabianski. Great to have so much detail accompany the rankings
Expected fall as you say Fabianski with only two real races in two months, but the gap up to where we need to be for Plan A (a.k.a. plan jandal doesn't cry and ragequit letting go of lots of home grown talents in renewals) looks quite scary already though far from impossible of course - still no idea how the season will go, Pologne as our first race back after nearly two rl months with only 2RDs and one of our biggest season goals will be a huge tonesetter, at least for my mood
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Surprised to see us actually climb in the standings, the Projected ones seem more in line with how we anticipate our season going, but it's nice to be up here getting a nosebleed and having the points on the board is nice.
Man, to imagine how these standings would look like if Madrazo had performed to expectations ... We're still on promotion course, thanks to Stallaert more than anything, but he's already got most of his high potential races done now (still a few left), so the others need to step up if we want to continue down that path. Amaysim dominates as expected, and other strong contenders are up there as well. Going to be a very tense season.
A very good jump for us. Hopefully Ahlstrand and Quintana can deliver vital points down the road since our depth scoring isn't good at the moment. Although I still have hopes we can snatch points the way Ries did in Colombia. Until then we are in a very good position to continue the development of my project.
Thank you very much for the awesome ranking update!
