Unlike in February, there weren't enough cobbled races available in March to do a split by terrain - instead, we'll have partial rankings for classics and stage races, with 5 each per category:
Partial March Ranking | Classics
The month starts and ends with a C2 classic - the first day had one more cobbled race, Geraardsbergen - Bosberg. This one attracted 4 PCT teams, each of which scored at least 1 point. At the top, we have two teams: Jura, who took 3rd place with Tediashvili, plus another point by Kosic - and Fastned, with Van der Hoorn finishing 4th and Bovenhuis adding 4 points for 16th place. That's 30 points for both teams. Genii got 14 points, with last year's winner Paprstka finishing 8th in 2023.
The second race is a pretty unique one - a TTT classic, whereof there are only three across all divisions. As often seen this year in races against the clock, the favourites also claimed the first positions, with Jura winning the race and a full 100 points. Los Pollos and Glanbia were fighting for 2nd, as predicted - with the Mexicans getting the upper hand and 65 points, the Irishmen taking home 50 points.
After the cobblers and the TTers, it was time for the puncheurs to shine - and boy, did Areruya shine with his fantastic solo win in Strade Bianche! Given the HC rating of the race, that was 140 points for him and his Xero team. Lampre "only" took 3rd place with Meurisse - but with Turgis (9th) and De Vos (20th) also scoring, the Italians scored a great haul of 119 points! Sauber also had great depth scoring with Frankiny (5th), Azman (10th) and Hirschi (11th) - 109 points for the Sammarinese in 3rd place.
And then the clash on the final racing day of the month - with some more C1 cobbles in Lillestrom, Norway. Theuns had won twice on home soil this year - now he also has a win abroad, as he outsprinted everyone on the final kilometer. With Tediashvili adding some minor points, that's 83 points for Jura. Lampre, led by Daniel in 4th place, again had some strong depth with Van Keirsbulck (14th) and Rowe (16th) in the Top 20, plus Thwaites (22nd) picking up a couple of points, too - 59 points for the Italians. Bralirwa as the 3rd best scoring team got the 56 points for another Stallaert podium finish (2nd).
Rounding off the month was the C2 rated GP Izola, with 4 PCT teams present - but only Fastned actually scoring points. De Kleijn finished on a solid 12th place, with Hessmann adding a 17th place - 10 points for the Dutchmen.
If you saw it coming that Jura top the classics ranking after being the best team in 3 out of 5 races - well, you're right. The Swiss scored 228 in their four races, despite not having a top contender in the month's sole HC race.
Lampre did a good job in Italy and Norway, getting 178 points - 50 points behind Jura, but with a clearly stronger PpRD having raced only twice. The Italians also have a solid margin on Los Pollos in 3rd place, with the Mexicans picking up 155 points.
Xero and Lierse round off the Top 5 with 140 and 136 points respectively - the Kiwis have the Top PpRD in this category, racing only in Strade Bianche (and winning it). Also above 100 points are Sauber, Bralirwa and DuckDuckGo, taking 6th through 8th.
It's then a clear gap (33 points) to Tryg in 9th place, with the Danes scoring 76 points. Fastned raced 4 teams - including both C2 races - but that only got them the final Top 10 spot and 70 points.
At the bottom of the table, we have Spark, who didn't race at all, and Indosat, who failed to score in Strade which was their only classic of the month - two bagels. Not much better for Zwift, with Girmay scoring their sole point in Lillestrom. Kraftwerk are also below 10 points, with 10 being the score of Zalgiris and Assa Abloy.
Team
Bos
IoM
Bia
Izo
Lil
Total
1
Jura GIANTS
30
100
15
0
83
228
2
Lampre - Pinarello
0
0
119
0
59
178
3
Los Pollos Hermanos
0
65
70
0
20
155
4
Xero Racing
0
0
140
0
0
140
5
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
0
45
45
0
46
136
6
Sauber Petronas Racing
0
0
109
0
13
122
7
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
0
35
23
0
56
114
8
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
0
0
103
0
6
109
9
Tryg - Gobyk
0
30
10
0
36
76
10
Fastned
30
0
5
10
25
70
11
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
0
0
53
0
10
63
12
Glanbia
0
50
0
0
0
50
13
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
40
8
0
0
48
14
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
14
25
5
0
0
44
15
Sony - Force India
0
0
12
0
32
44
16
Team UBS - Tissot
1
0
15
0
15
31
17
Colombini Cycling
0
0
11
0
16
27
18
Trans Looney Tunes
0
0
9
0
8
17
19
Assa Abloy
0
10
0
0
0
10
20
DK Žalgiris
0
0
10
0
0
10
21
Kraftwerk Man Machine
0
0
5
0
0
5
22
Zwift Pro Cycling
0
0
0
0
1
1
23
Indosat Ooredoo
0
0
0
0
0
0
24
Spark-BNZ Racing
0
0
0
0
0
0
Partial March Ranking | Stage Races
The first stage race of the month, C1 Vuelta al Pais Vasco, kicked off with a TTT - which meant lots of GC points in addition to the stage points for the winner. Jura won it - and thanks to those "bonus" points, in addition to Masnada's 2nd place GC finish plus 3 more in the Top 20 (Darbellay, Küng, Errazkin), they got the best score in this race, 207 points. It's worth noting though that Masnada himself scored less than half of the team's total points (101), so that's really a depth result.
And it's 3 points more than what Lierse got from this race. Oomen won the race in style, leaving everyone behind on the final stage, and scoring 165 points (2nd in points, 3rd in KoM on top of the GC win). But his teammates - mainly Novak (17th in GC, 2nd on stage 5) and De Plus (21st in GC) - only added 39 points, leading to a total score of 204 points.
Team #3 is... Xero! Finally waking up, they won stage 2 with Pidcock, who also finished 3rd on the final day, won the U25 standings ahead of teammate Fouche and ended up 4th in the GC. Houle added a 2nd place on stage 3, whereas Fouche finished 10th in the GC - 153 points for the Kiwis. UBS were the only other team above 100 points, with Indosat, Trans and Bralirwa narrowly missing out.
Vuelta a Colombia was the month's sole PTHC race - one for the climbers. No TTs involved, just climbing - and some sprinting.
And you might be pretty surprised to find out that the top scoring PCT team in this race was... Sauber! They were pretty much nowhere to be seen on the first four days - but on day 5, Pomoshnikov took the win from the breakaway - and jumped up to 4th in the GC! His efforts were rewarded by 154 points; Misbah, who finished 8th on the same stage and 20th in the GC added some notable points as well, netting the Sammarinese a total of 190 points!
Choi looked like the highest PCT finisher until stage 5 - now he was 2nd best (5th), and so were Sony. 121 were for their leader, who added two 4th places on stages 2 and 3 to his 5th place GC finish, whereas Leemreize as their second notable contributor finished 3rd in the U25 standings. 155 points for the Indian outfit in total.
It was a fierce fight for 3rd between Popo4Ever and Fastned - with the former getting the upper hand by a single point (129 vs. 128), despite a pretty bad race by Padun (70 points). But Vasyliv (2nd on stage 5) and Lutsyshyn (3rd on stage 4) added some decent points as well, so their race wasn't a complete failure.
After two 6-day races, we then had two 4-day ones. Well, not exactly "we", as only Zalgiris participated in the C2 Tour of the Middle East. They scored 9 points, mainly thanks to Räim's 3rd place on stage 1. Hagen scored one GC point, Bereznyak got 2 from the U25 standings. That's it.
Things were clearly different in Tour of Guadeloupe - rated C1, we had 13 PCT teams present, and far more points at stake. After a very, very dominant race - two wins, plus a second and third place each (and obviously the green jersey) - that's the results of Groenewegen, who singlehandedly scored 218 points (more than any team in Pais Vasco, just to compare). Thanks to a win in the team standings, plus minor GC results by Matthews and Vingerling, that's 238 points for the flying Dutchmen!
Given this dominance, it's clear that there must be quite a gap to 2nd place - where we find Tryg, who also had a strong race with Démare, finishing 3rd, 2nd and 1st on the first three stages. 2nd in GC and points are a very strong outcome, rewarded by 143 points. Thanks to the 3rd place in team standings, plus Summerhill getting some GC points, makes it a total points tally of 151.
All other (PCT) teams finished clearly below 100 points, with 5 of them within just 8 points from each other. Los Pollos lead this group of 5, scoring 71 points. Thereof 64 by Manninen, who got his best result on stage 1 with a 2nd place, and finished 6th in the GC. Moutsios added the remaining 7 points scoring in GC, KoM and U25.
The final stage race of the month was another 6-day one - the one for the puncheurs, in South Africa. And the best scoring team - by a mile even - might be surprising. They didn't win a stage (highest stage result: 4th). They didn't win the GC. But they did score 297 points - 1 point less than the current PCT highscore (Pollos in their home race). Who are they?
They are McCormick! They had a pretty anonymous race - but accomplished a huge team result! Winning the team standings is part of it - but even more so having two riders in the Top 10 - Narvaez in 2nd place and Warbasse in 7th - and another two in the Top 20, Boswell and Bagioli in 15th and 16th. Impressive. Who needs McNulty?
Almost as impressive was to see Izagirre as the GC winner - leading Bralirwa to 204 points. I told you, a mile behind McCormick. Izagirre scored 183 of these points, with no other rider getting more than 7. So not too much depth, but the GC win obviously outweighs all of that!
In 3rd place, we have DuckDuckGo, probably another rather surprising name! But 5th and 6th in the GC with Stannard and Henao - the former easily winning the U25 standings - was worth quite a lot of points. 183 to be precise, with no other of their riders scoring here.
An outstanding Tour of Guadeloupe plus a solid Vuelta a Colombia - alongside some minor TOSA points - are enough for Fastned to top this list. 394 points are a pretty good outcome, although they were probably hoping for more in South Africa mainly.
Lierse are the only ones who got pretty close, scoring 370 points. The Pais Vasco win definitely helped a lot - Colombia was OK, but Guadeloupe and most of all South Africa surely were disappointing. Nonetheless, it's a solid 2nd place here.
The fight for 3rd was pretty fierce, with 5 teams ending up within just 19 points from each other. Team Démare won that fight with 339 points, with the Frenchman doing a great job both in Guadeloupe and South Africa. Team Tryg added some points in Pais Vasco, securing that 3rd place.
Jura are 4th, with both the Swiss and McCormick in 5th place doing only two of these five races. Popo4Ever and Bralirwa - the latter with a rather surprising yet deserved win in South Africa - take 6th and 7th.
It's then almost a 60 points gap down to Sony in 8th place, with UBS, Sauber, Xero, Assa Abloy, Indosat and Kraftwerk all within 26 points from the Indians! Pretty stacked midfield I'd say.
Los Pollos are the final team reaching 200 points, with Trans and DuckDuckGo slightly below. Colombini are above 100, with Zwift very narrowly missing out.
The bottom 5 are between 72 and 37 points, with Zalgiris surely expecting more from Guadeloupe, and Lampre and Spark from South Africa. Genii and Glanbia are at the bottom of this table.
Team
Vas
Col
TOME
Gua
TOSA
Total
1
Fastned
0
128
0
238
28
394
2
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
204
112
0
37
17
370
3
Tryg - Gobyk
24
0
0
151
164
339
4
Jura GIANTS
207
0
0
0
128
335
5
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
0
0
29
297
326
6
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
62
129
0
70
63
324
7
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
92
0
0
24
204
320
8
Sony - Force India
0
155
0
67
41
263
9
Team UBS - Tissot
109
68
0
0
82
259
10
Sauber Petronas Racing
0
190
0
0
62
252
11
Xero Racing
153
89
0
0
6
248
12
Assa Abloy
0
0
0
64
177
241
13
Indosat Ooredoo
98
76
0
9
57
240
14
Kraftwerk Man Machine
0
36
0
42
159
237
15
Los Pollos Hermanos
0
0
0
71
129
200
16
Trans Looney Tunes
97
47
0
0
47
191
17
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
0
0
0
0
183
183
18
Colombini Cycling
0
88
0
0
42
130
19
Zwift Pro Cycling
0
0
0
0
98
98
20
DK Žalgiris
0
0
9
63
0
72
21
Lampre - Pinarello
0
32
0
8
14
54
22
Spark-BNZ Racing
0
0
0
0
44
44
23
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
18
0
0
0
21
39
24
Glanbia
0
0
0
0
37
37
Period Ranking | March
1st in classics, 4th in stage races - Jura top the March rankings. 563 points scored in 20 RDs is a 28.15 PpRD average - certainly a strong value, but not the highest of the month.
The only other team above 500 points is Lierse, who are 5th in classics and 2nd in stage races. However, they needed 28 RDs to achieve this - but as I always say, points scored are points scored.
Fastned in 3rd place - the top stage racers of the month - are already 99 points behind Jura. And they're 30 points ahead of Bralirwa, who are on a very similar PpRD. Tryg as the final team above 400 points round off the Top 5 of the month.
Xero and Popo4Ever are just one point apart from each other, 388 vs. 387. Even "worse" for McCormick and Sauber, who are tied for 8th with 374 points. Los Pollos' 355 points are enough to round off the Top 10. The three last mentioned teams all didn't race a lot and have PpRDs above 20, so they did pretty well I'd say.
Sony in 11th only just reached the 300 points mark - something DuckDuckGo narrowly missed out on - but they scored 292 points in just 10 RDs, making for the month's top PpRD of 29.20! UBS are just two points behind - but they used up 24 RDs to get there...
Assa Abloy and Kraftwerk are the final Top 15 teams, with Indosat and Lampre missing out on the Top 15 by just 2 and 10 points respectively.
Trans in 18th are just above 200 points - and they're the first team with a PpRD below 10, which usually is a sign of potential relegation danger. Same for Colombini, who got just above 150 points, but used up less RDs for getting there. They're the final team above 100 points.
Which means that the bottom 5 all are below those 100 points. They are Zwift, Glanbia, Genii, Zalgiris and Spark. The latter were the only team participating only in one race this month.
Team
Classics
Stage Races
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Jura GIANTS
228
335
563
20
28.15
2
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
136
370
506
28
18.07
3
Fastned
70
394
464
24
19.33
4
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
114
320
434
22
19.73
5
Tryg - Gobyk
76
339
415
24
17.29
6
Xero Racing
140
248
388
24
16.17
7
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
63
324
387
26
14.88
8
McCormick Pro Cycling
48
326
374
14
26.71
9
Sauber Petronas Racing
122
252
374
16
23.38
10
Los Pollos Hermanos
155
200
355
16
22.19
11
Sony - Force India
44
263
307
20
15.35
12
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
109
183
292
10
29.20
13
Team UBS - Tissot
31
259
290
24
12.08
14
Assa Abloy
10
241
251
12
20.92
15
Kraftwerk Man Machine
5
237
242
18
13.44
16
Indosat Ooredoo
0
240
240
24
10.00
17
Lampre - Pinarello
178
54
232
20
11.60
18
Trans Looney Tunes
17
191
208
24
8.67
19
Colombini Cycling
27
130
157
16
9.81
20
Zwift Pro Cycling
1
98
99
10
9.90
21
Glanbia
50
37
87
12
7.25
22
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
44
39
83
18
4.61
23
DK Žalgiris
10
72
82
10
8.20
24
Spark-BNZ Racing
0
44
44
6
7.33
Full Ranking
One of the few changes at the top of the table is a leader change - Jura GIANTS now top the PCT standings after being the highest scoring team in March! They lead the division with 1,256 points - compared to last year's March rankings, that's almost 200 points less with 7 RDs more spent, so clearly there's no dominating team (so far) such as Amaysim in 2022.
Los Pollos dropped down to 2nd after a solid, yet not outstanding month. They're 91 points behind the Swiss now - but still have the highest PpRD of the division, ahead of the Swiss. And with the races coming up, they're almost sure to be back in the lead by the end of April, so clear track for promotion for the Mexicans.
There aren't any changes in 3rd through 5th, meaning Fastned hold onto the final podium spot for now. However, their 56 spent RDs are the 2nd highest value of the division, and their PpRD is only good for 5th right now - but they seem to have found their mojo again lately. 1,074 points mean they're roughly 100 points behind LPH and another 100 behind Jura for now.
Bralirwa are still sitting right behind the podium spots, trailing Fastned by 73 points - but having 13 additional days of racing left. They actually have the 3rd best PpRD so far, despite Meintjes not racing a lot yet - this definitely could be their year! It looks like Izagirre + Meintjes in stead of Madrazo was a good call - especially the former performs way above his OVL, as we'll see later.
Popo4Ever currently are on the final automatic promotion spot - having the 6th best PpRD could however mean that they'll end up where they usually end up... But they clearly are in the promotion race this year! With 941 points, they're just 133 behind the podium.
And one thing to note is that while the Top 5 teams didn't change at all (except for the leader change), they clearly increased their gap to 6th, from 35 points between 5th and 6th by the end of February to now 157 points.
157 points behind Popo4Ever are... Tryg! They cut their ranking in half, jumping from 12th to 6th after a stellar Démare show in Guadeloupe and South Africa. The PpRD sees them a bit lower in the rankings for now, but well, points scored are points scored... Repeating myself?
The title for "biggest improver of the month" clearly goes to Lierse, though! They started the month on the final relegation spot (20th), and now are up to 7th place, just 15 points behind Tryg! They did use a lot of race days to get there, but any race where you score is a good race.
Assa Abloy are in the opposite situation - they're pretty high up despite racing few - meaning their PpRD must be pretty high as well. It is, currently 4th place for them - but they'll have to translate that into points. It's surely looking pretty good for them right now.
Rounding off the Top 10 are the final teams above 700 points, Lampre and Sony. Both targetting promotion this year, they still have a good amount of work to do to get there - roughly 200 points to make up for currently.
McCormick also made some good progress this month, jumping from 17th to 11th, and with lots of RDs still to spend. In terms of PpRD, they're currently 7th - can they even get back-to-back promotions in their first PCT season? In terms of points, their score of 679 means they're 262 behind the promotion spots - some more TOSA-like magic might be needed to get there.
Indosat, Sauber, Kraftwerk and UBS follow only 10, 14, 20 and 21 points behind, with the latter rounding off the Top 15. DuckDuckGo in 16th also are in touch with that "lower midfield" group, 23 points behind UBS - before we have another big gap.
In numbers, that's 128 points between DuckDuckGo and Xero - who handed over the red lantern to now be on a rather safe spot, almost 100 points clear of relegation - and with Pologne next month we'd expect them to make another jump up...
Zalgiris are 22 points behind Xero and currently are the final team looking relatively safe - also in terms of race days spent. Genii with 422 points are 63 behind the Lithuanians - but only 11 points clear of the relegation zone, and they actually have the worst PpRD of the entire division. And also the most RDs spent.
Colombini currently are on that first relegation spot, and while their PpRD currently projects them to be safe, it's definitely too early to call. They're the final team above 400 points.
Trans are 40 points down, with Spark and Glanbia both having around 350 points (meaning about 60 behind Colombini, and 70 to safety). Zwift are dead last with just 286 points, but they also have the least amount of RDs spent. Still, it looks like a long way to go to avoid back-to-back relegations...
I already mentioned him more than once now - and Arnaud Démare indeed is our new individual rankings leader. Almost 300 points combined from Guadeloupe and South Africa propels him up from 8th to the top - 499 points scored. He has spent half of his RDs now - can he reach 1,000 points? And can anyone get close to him? Areruya (currenlty 37th after his first 2 RD spent) will try to find an answer soon I guess...
Edward Theuns drops down to 2nd, racing (and scoring) only once - he has 406 points, which is a very clear gap to Démare already. Matti Manninen rounds off the podium with 387 points.
With Dylan Groenewegen - the only one being close to the podium (368 points) - and Alberto Dainese (300 points), we have two sprinters next. Plenty more sprinter races next month, they could make even more progress!
On the other hand, a big part of the season is already done for cobblers like Joeri Stallaert, who lost two spots this month, dropping to 6th. 288 points for him - he had 484 by the end of March last year. Clearly, he got some competition this year...
Stanislaw Aniolkowski is already the next sprinter on the list, before we get the first pure uphill specialist with Sergio Higuita in 8th place. And in 9th place... Ion Izagirre! He's been doing insane things for a sub-74 OVL rider, showing that sometimes experience matters way more than stats!
Rounding off the Top 10, 7 points behind Izagirre and 3 points ahead of Stannard in 11th, is Eddie Dunbar. He had a decent Pais Vasco, but some of his main races are still to come.
Izagirre easily gets the "improver of the month" award, jumping from 75th to 9th with his South Africa win. Higuita also did a good job improving from 34th to 8th, and Stannard from 67th to 11th.
On the other hand, 4 riders dropped out of the Top 10 - Van Hooydonck (12th), Abdul Halil (15th), Bol (17th) and Meintjes (18th). With an interesting month upcoming, expect some more movement!
Obviously a great month for us, or more correctly a great Tour of South Africa for us. I knew we had a good race, didn't realize quite how good. I very much doubt we are candidates for a double promotion. Not many race where we have the potential to score like South Africa and no C2 race days used yet.
Congrats to JURA on a great month.
Interesting how many sprinters in the top 20 for individual rankings, I guess the season is front loaded to them.
2 big races mean we jump up the rankings and have a more healthy looking pprd but seeing as it was a couple of big results and not consistent scoring it might be hard to keep the pace up.
Not a bad month for us but should've been so much better with both Benoot races turning out to be flops. We look to be on course for a worse season than last time unless the trend reverses to an extent.
The way the season is going, I think the top 3 are already a lock on for promotion, with Bralirwa looking very promising as well. The battle for the final couple of promotion spots will be fierce.
As Fabianski said, not a superb month for us, but definitely still solid. Higuita doing great individual work in Bianche and South Africa combined with some points from other leaders Manninen and Zepuntke, as well as some youngsters, keep us well in the promotion race. It looks like Fabianski is as great a manager as he is a monthly recap writer though, as he is currently making a fool out of all other managers with his points tally and pprd with several C2 races already being raced for them. Congratulations Fab!
Seems like at the moment there are six relegation candidates for five spots. One big race can change everything of course, and some others can have a streak of bad results and join the battle, but good luck to all of them.
Glanbia just about hanging in there. Looking at the projected figures we see that there is a bit of a gap between the bottom 5 and the next team- Colombini
We are hopeful that the worst part of the season is behind us and thanks to Kennett we are still in contention.
Only 2 RDs used by Eastman so far....,that keeps us going
Really awesome to end up 4th in a month with just one Stallaert race and none from Meintjes. Indeed a far cry from last year, where we were so dependent on our leaders. Now, Strade Bianche and the Isle of Man TTT deliver us as many points as Joeri's second place in Lillestrom. Interesting to see the comparison with Joeri's points total from last year and indeed, Theuns' presence has an impact without a doubt. Though it is noteworthy that by this point last season, Joeri had already won Franceville, too, which is still to come here, and he also didn't have Rheden GP on the calendar which he does now, so plenty opportunity to make up some points.
I am cautious about any promotion thoughts, given Stallaert always propelled us near the top in spring and then we typically fall off. However, Louis Meintjes has only done one of his eight races so far, and if the rest of the squad continues to contribute, who knows ...
As for the rest of the rankings, Jura indeed look on pace to be the next team to march straight from CT to PT, even if the season is still long. Fastned and LPH near the top, as expected, too, and Lierse and Assa Abloy finding their footing also fits preseason sentiments, if I remember correctly. UBS and Xero perhaps the most surprising underperformers so far, but again, still a long season ahead. Long season for the teams at the bottom, too, hopefully with some successes still to come.
As always, thanks a lot for the write-up, Fabianski!
Jura with some great momentum right now that could carry them to back to back promotions. I still think Los Pollos is the top team in the division, but Fastned could also be up there. I hope Sony and Xero improve and really challenge for promotions, and of course I want my Slovenian friends at Trans to avoid relegation
That said, a lot of the shitty hill race days are gone by now. So the 0 pointers are about to stop soon. Add Juarez, which was a 0 pointer for Groenewegen.
Other than that, Olivier only just had his first race and immediately did well in Colombia, Van Hooydonck is very steady and is having couple more cobbles left, Cras did well so far when having his chance and last but not least Groenewegen will hopefully keep showing what he did in DUC and Guadeloupe and less so as in Juarez.
The big sad. Not at all where I expected us to be at this point of the season. Obviously taking a big hit in motivation. But I hope at the bare minimum we can stay up. Congrats to the teams at the top, happy for you. And thank you for the update Fabi.
Truly terrible South Africa and Colombia performances halted our great kickstart to our season from Strade and Pais Vasco. Going to need to have no more disasters and very little underperformances to stand a chance at promotion.
Spoiler
Four ex-Xero riders in the Top 30, one current one
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
Well, I definitely didn't expect this to happen this year. Being on top of the PCT standings feels weird, but it obviously feels good.
I always knew we needed a strong start if we want to have a shot at a Top 10 finish, given that our top rider is a cobbler, and cobblers have mostly early season highlights. But I surely couldn't expect Theuns to get 3 wins in 4 races, amazing stuff!
However, despite his dominant showings, he "only" scored 1/3 of our points so far - which I think is a pretty good sign. It's hard to say how much our other main strength - the TTT setup - contributed in terms of hard numbers; besides the win in Isle of Man, the TTT acted more as an "enabler" in Pais Vasco and South Africa - although the latter didn't quite work out in the end. But with those three TTTs, we expected a high scoring month - we got it. Thanks to cobbles and TTTs.
So, we were the best team in March, and 2nd best in terms of PpRD - feels good!
We top the rankings - feels great!
But - where do we go from here? Downwards, obviously. With many of our top races already behind, we cannot expect to stay even close to where we are now. I remember 2021, my first PCT year, where Bralirwa led the standings after 4 months - they only just finished inside the Top 10. And while some think we are serious promotion candidates, I rather expect to see a similar drop as Bralirwa had two years ago. I agree that we're looking pretty strong right now, and our PpRD looks great after lots of strong races - but unlike Los Pollos we don't have strong leaders everywhere, we pretty much only have cobbles and TTTs.
But hey, I'll enjoy this ranking update until I get the next one, and it's definitely a historical one for Jura!
So, who are my promotion favourites if my team isn't (really) part of them? Well, Los Pollos, obviously. They may have lost the lead for now, but I guess they'll only need Pologne to get it back. Even Baltic Chain will probably be enough to fly past us, if Manninen finds his Juarez form again (strongly supposing he'll be racing there).
Fastned are 3rd, but as roturn said, many of the hilly races that don't suit them too much this year are already gone. Plus all of their C2 races. Meanwhile, Olivier has only just started his season, and Groenewegen has found his sprinting legs again - of course it's a top-heavy team, but they should be going up.
By now, I definitely also consider Bralirwa to be hot candidates for promotion. Stallaert has always been good and still is. Meintjes had a great start in Portugal, and will have more great races. But whereas Silvestre is feeling his decline and hasn't been a factory by now, their Izagirre gamble is paying off big, big time! I didn't expect this - and honestly hoped a rider with such low energy stats wouldn't perform - but he does. And thanks to his (far too) low OVL, he has plenty of races left - and some of them should suit him better than any other puncheur (bar Bobridge, maybe). After the Madrazo blunder, they seem to have found a great solution, that could indeed see them promote.
Assa Abloy aren't in the Top 5 right now, but I'd expect to see them up there in the end. Dainese hasn't had a stellar race yet; I suppose he'll get at least one where he scores big time. Gesbert has joined the rank of the division's strongest puncheurs - and their TT duo should do great in the TT-heavy stage races. Paillot has already done that, and he'll do it again; Gonzales also has races like Arab Tour or Amissa Bongo to shine. Faglum Karlsson is rock solid, too - plenty of good scoring races for them to come.
And what about Indosat? Dunbar has been and will be a frustrating adversary in many races for my team; I'd expect him in the PCT Top 3 again. And Yates hasn't even started his season yet iirc - as a 2022 GT podium finisher, he'll do great for them I'm sure. And if Abdul Halil shows his Juarez form more often than his Guadeloupe one, there's definitely some good material for a promotion push!
There's also Popo4Ever or Lierse who could go up, but both had some pretty mixed results so far (although the former really have a chance of making it this time). I'd also expect Sony to move up once Benoot performs and Choi gets more races. I think my team is in that bunch as well, fighting for promotion, but not a top contender. So, interesting months ahead!
At the lower end of the table, not many surprises to be honest. The 5 teams I predicted to relegate currently have the lowest PpRD, and of my "bottom 7" only Sauber are currently clearly higher, thanks to their great Colombia performance. I definitely expect Zwift to move up, once Powless finds some good races, but I guess they're indeed at risk of repeated relegations.
Thanks for the comprehensive update Fabi! Deffo not angling for promotion at the current rate, I honestly doubt that we're even going to be in the top 10. I budgetted with a 400 point season from Daniel but with Theuns and Van Hooydonck in the mix that's gonna be impossible. We were dreadful in the stage races this period besides a few stage podiums here and there but had some solid classics to work with.
Our next four races are Pologne, Badaling, Wallonie and Lisbon, which are all three races that should give us the option to save our PpRD but time will tell!
Incredible start for Jura, but some wild overperformances in there to put them there and time will tell if it is going to be sustainable. Down towards the bottom Colombini looks to have lost the coinflip when it comes to their leaders but still time to turn it around!
