click to enlarge

The management of Tinkoff - La Datcha Team was on holiday during the transfer season at the newly acquired villa in Cabo San Lucus (Mexico), which led to a quite transfer period: We were able to sign Jonas Vingegaard and a talented stagiaire from Uzbekistan Dimitry Bocharov.

4 riders didn't get a new contract during contract negotiations, luckily for them 3 got resigned by our team during the transfer period; Lev Gonov, Gleb Syritsa and Egor Igoshev (the first two will be loaned out to Spark Team NZ and Igoshev will be stagiaire again). Alexander Sulimov found a new team and signed with Specialized.

Ivan Menshov, a talented Russian stage racer and son of Denis Menshov, was signed as a free agent. He together with Ivanov Viacheslav will be riding for Zwift - Newton Foundation this year (loan deal) to gain eXPerience.

At the end of the transfer season we managed to sign a French stagiaire by the name of Jordan Labrosse, he might be a decent cobbler some day.

So what do you guys think? After last year's second place eyes are on Tinkoff -> Good enough for let's say top-5 in the PT?

-kandesbunzler26-

kandesbunzler26 believes that we will finish 8th as a team this year:
"They were the surprise of the last season, but it’s hard to see them repeat a podium finish. It should still be enough for a top 10 finish by adding up a lot of sub-top results and depth."

-knockout-
knockout also (!) predicts us being 8th:
"The team of maxed out stamina stats. If that is now the crucial stat as everyone is suggesting, they are bound to overperform once again.

Sivakov is looking great, Senechal and their sprint duo will surely play an important role once again. They also have a good TTT team as they always have.

Im very doubtful about Skujins. I suspect he might hit the cliff now and stop performing solidly.

I simply suck at predicting them. Always underrating them. 8th is higher than i would normally predict them since i see flaws in many of their riders but the success in the past and the suspected importance of stamina needs to be recognized. From relegation to podium, nothing would really shock me anymore."

-AbhishekLFC-
AbhishekLFC also (!!) predicts us being 8th

-Ulrich Ulriksen-
Ulrich Ulriksen predicts us being 7th

-jph27-
jph27 also (!) predicts us being 7th

-Heine-
Heine predicts us being 11th:
"There are two things that really stand out for me when looking at the entire Tinkoff team together, that is the awesome national focus and the great focus on stamina stat. 15 riders with 75 or over in stamina! As my knowledge of PCM24 goes that will be very valuable this season and makes me believe Tinkoff could really overperform my ranking here, but I am staying with my rules.

Sivakov is the main leader and he is being trained into a great GC rider. Good climbing, great energy stats and good TT makes. He is still just that tiny step behind the top who can win GTs, but from next season he will be right up there! Vingegaard is one of the few new faces on the team and will together with Mamykin, Vlasov, Rikunov and others form a good support climing team for Sivakov. There are also a great TTT train here with 5 riders 77 or higher, including Vlasov who can climb well and Razumov who in himself should score some good points with TT combined with som hill.

Skujins is the aging hilly leader who might have his last good season this year. Tikhonin, Strakhov and Trakhov looks like great support riders for him. Senechal is another good rider, I rank him also right behind the really greats on his terrains but should be a consistent scorer. When it comes to sprints Samolenkov and Banaszek is the sprinters on the team. To be honest while they look good I am not really sure if they will be able to do that much and there is a total lack of leadout riders for them.

All in all I place Tinkoff at 11th, but I would not be surprised if they put this prediction to shame with their great focus on energy stats that could make this team do much better."

-whitejersey-
whitejersey did a nice video about the PT teams -> Tinkoff's part starts at 42m40s

click to enlarge

The first Monument of the season (Milano), a Classic (Duché), a Team Time Trial (Copenhagen) and 5 Stage Races (Tasmania, Portugal, Qatar, Tirreno and Nice) were on the menu the first two months:

The season opener (since 2021) Tour of Tasmania is always fun, mainly because of who rides/wears what, it was an ok race for us; 14th place for Samolenkov and 8th place for Skujins in the first two stages weren't great, but at least our time trialists safed us during the final Stage (19km ITT). In the end Aydar Zakarin was able to finish 6th in the General Classifications, not too bad.

The prologue and time-trial of the Volta a Portugal went pretty good, too bad Rikunov and Mamykin lost time during stage 4. Luckily they both bounced back by being in the break during the last stage, but in the end not many points gathered, Jonas Vingegaard was our most consistent rider which resulted in a 15th place overall.

Five flat stages in a row at the Tour of Qatar were Samolenkov was able to finish 15th, 2nd, 5th, 6th and 14th. No time gaps during the flat stages meant our time-trialists were able to gather points during the last Stage (4km ITT), but surprisingly it was Artem Samolenkov who ended up being our best placed rider in the General Classifications (5th); a really good result.

The variability of race-day conditions hit Sivakov hard during his first race of the season; Tirreno-Adriatico... to ease the pain the team bounced back by winning the team time trial beating EA Vesuvio. In the end a top-10 was the maximum Pavel Sivakov could do under these circumstances.

Paris-Nice also didn't go as planned at all: Our team did a no show during the whole race and for some reason half of the team dropped back on stage 5 to safe... Banaszek? Dmitry Trakhov 38th place overall, no bueno.

Toms Skujins was on the wrong side of the split 20km before the finish line of the Classique du Grand-Duché, luckily he was able to recover and finish 10th in the end: Good job by the old warrior!

Just like the rest of February Copenhagen-Malmo TTT also didn't go well: Petr Rikunov led our team to a 6th place, while on a better day a podium place should have been possible.

Milano San Remo was another no show for our team: Artem Samolenkov 28th place was disappointing to say the least.

To conclude: January was great being the second-highest scoring team just 8 points behind EA Vesuvio, February was the opposite being the fifth-lowest scoring team.

Tinkoff winning Stage 6 (22km TTT) of Tirreno-Adriatico

click to enlarge

The first Grand Tour of the season (Giro), 2 Monuments (Vlaanderen and Roubaix), 5 Classics (Cheshire, E3, Liechtenstein, Veenendaal and Amstel) and 4 Stage Races (Nederland, Colombia, Franceville and Slovenia) were on Tinkoff's program during March and April:

With January being good and February being bad, surely March/April will be good again, right? The Ronde van Nederland was an enjoyable race for us with Banaszek finishing 2nd in the first stage and Toms Skujins ending 12th in the General Rankings.

Banaszek delivered once more with solid 5th places at Stage 1 and 4 of the Vuelta a Colombia. Pavel Sivakov on the other hand must have had bad race-day conditions again just like Tirreno-Adriatico... really annoying: He still managed to finish 6th overall despite losing minutes during the mountain stages.

Florian Senechal started his cobble campaign strong by finishing 5th at the Cheshire Cycling Tour. Top-10 thanks to Florian Senechal at the E3 Prijs was acceptable, but having no one else in the top-75 was pretty bad. Franceville Classique was a lot better; Florian Senechal had a puncture at Stage 1, but still attacking and finishing 2nd was amazing. With a 6th place at Stage 2 he ended up 4th overall. 6th place at the Ronde van Vlaanderen and 10th at Paris - Roubaix were both decent rides by Florian Senechal, we had hope for a little bit more result wise, but Senechal group sprints are always weak.

After five cobble races it was finally time for the first Grand Tour of the season; the Giro d'Italia -> Vingegaard must have had a weak condition all Giro long, luckily for us Rybalkin, Arslanov, Foliforov, Novikov and especially Mamykin made up for it. Banaszek was pretty good in the mass sprints (2,3,4,5,11,11,12) and Trakhov's victory (Stage 7) made this Giro a success. In the end Matvey Mamykin managed to get 12th in the General Rankings and we won the Team Rankings which is a big achievement in a Grand Tour!

During the Giro there was another Stage Race on the calendar; the Tour of Slovenia. Nikita Razumov lost 4 minutes during Stage 4 which was a pity, still he managed to finish 10th overall after 5 stages, so a decent result in the end. Too bad we got 2nd during the team time trial (Stage 2) only to be beaten by 2 seconds...

During the Giro there also was a (mountain) Classic on the calendar; GP Liechtenstein. A decision was made at the beginning of the season -> Pavel Sivakov won't be riding the Giro, instead he will be going to Liechtenstein and this decision turned out to work great for us. Sivakov - helped by a weak startlist, but Silvio Herklotz was still there - was best of the rest and was able to finish 2nd at Liechtenstein!

We ended the month of April with two races in The Netherlands: At the sprint Classic Veenendaal - Veenendaal a (late) breakaway made it to the finish which cost Artem Samolenkov a top-10 (he finished 15th). Amstel Gold Race went a lot better; after his stage win at the Giro, Dmitry Trakhov continued his form and finished 6th which was a really good result (and with Strakhov and Skujins also in the top-20 a very good race pointwise).

To conclude: March was good being the fifth-highest scoring team, April was even a little bit better being the fourth-highest scoring team.

Trakhov winning Stage 7 of Giro d'Italia

click to enlarge