9 races in August for PCT, without the non-scoring-relevant talent show which is Tour de l'Avenir. We'll once again do the C1/C2 - PTHC/HC split, with 5 races in the former and 4 in the latter block.
Partial August Ranking | C1/C2
The month started with one of the least popular C1 stage races of the entire calendar in terms of participating PCT teams - which might have been partly due to the route including a TTT, but probably mainly due to the clash with Deutschland Tour where most strong PCT time triallists participated.
Team UBS made the best possible use of a pretty weak startlist - they simply made it a 1-2 in the GC! Schelling, finishing 3rd on the mountain stage on day 3, took the GC ahead of teammate Schir, who rather surprisingly also made the first group on that stage. A dominant TTT win on the final day sealed the GC for the Swiss, who fly back home with 230 points in their bags!
And it seems like being a German speaking team was a requirement to do well in New Zealand this year, with Kraftwerk taking the 2nd best score. Zabel won the opening stage, and after a 2nd and a 5th place - alongside a breakaway escapade with intermediate sprint points on day 3 - easily took home the green jersey. GC-wise, the Germans weren't equally successful, taking 8th to 10th with Ranaweera, Ludvigsson and Helme (plus Ho and Nerz in 19th and 20th). 4" faster in the TTT and that would've been 4th to 6th... Still, Kraftwerk also took 2nd in team standings, and scored 192 points overall.
And the 3rd team is a German speaking one as well - and it's even yet another Swiss team with Jura! Unlike the two other teams, the GIANTS failed to deliver any great stage results - having won all 4 previous C1 TTTs this year, they even failed to take a podium on day 5 - but some solid performances still brought them 4th to 6th on GC with Stüssi, Masnada and Darbellay, with Küng taking 18th place to add a couple of points. Winning the team standings - thanks to their 3" advantage over Kraftwerk in the TTT - was also worth some points, with the Swiss ending up with 179 points.
By the way, in 4th place - as the only other team above 100 points - we have the 3rd team with strong connections to Switzerland in Sauber, looks like some kind of pattern... maybe the impact of the Swiss national holiday on the first day of the race?
Next up was a C2 stage race, the Giro del Trentino. DuckDuckGo were the only team making the trip to Italy, and they came back with 12 points. All of them scored by Orosco, taking 3rd place from the breakaway on stage 3. He also was 21st in GC, tied for 5th in points, and 3rd in U25.
And yet more stage racing was on the menu, with the C1 Tour du Maroc. Three stages each for sprinters and uphill riders in North Africa, with in particular the climber field being very deep.
In the end, only one climber managed to get a significant gap on one of the stages - that was Yates, who had a stellar day on stage 4 and got a solo win. This was enough to win the GC as well, and he also ended up 2nd in points and 5th in KoM. Indosat also won stage 1 with Nur Hasan, launching the race in the best possible way. Indosat came out as the highest scoring team thanks to these two riders (plus 3 points by Abdurrahman), totalling 205 points.
The best scoring rider however wasn't Yates - it was Olivier, who won the first uphill stage, then finished 3rd and 2nd on the other ones. He also won the points jersey and ended up 2nd in GC. In terms of stage results, he was the dominant rider - but he lost the race due to not having been able to follow Yates on day 4. He still scored 168 points - which also is Fastned's total score, with all other riders failing to get any points.
We then have to make a big jump and dive below the 100 points mark to get to the 3rd best scoring team. By taking 6th, 2nd and 6th on the uphill stages, Novak secured the final GC podium spot (and 4th in points), scoring 88 points. Van Gils and Covi added 3 and 1 point respectively via U25 standings, meaning that Lierse got back home with 92 points in their bags.
Another C2 race was on the schedule, with the GP Plouay making its MG comeback. And what a race it was for (most) participating PCT teams, with three PCT riders in the Top 4 of the race! Ruiz got a sensational win and 50 points for - surprise, surprise - Los Pollos, with Naud finishing 2nd for McCormick, rewarded with 35 points (plus one from Boivin). Tesfaye Heyi (or whatever name jandal will come up with) failed to make it an all-PTC podium, finishing 4th on 26 points.
The final race of the month in this block was an iconic race, the C1 GP Kigali. The final one for the cobblers at this level - and obviously all specialists were present.
Having had a rather mediocre year, Summerhill took one of his last chances to shine, winning in Kigali for a 3rd time - after having been the only two-times winner before, he's now the clear record champion! 80 points for him and Tryg.
Stallaert confirmed his reputation of being PCT's top cobbler once again, sprinting to 2nd. Teggart in 22nd added two more points, bringing Bralirwa's count up to 58. These two points were actually crucial to finish as the 2nd highest scoring team, with UBS ending up just one point behind - Bohli in 5th, Jacobs in 11th, Spengler in 18th and Schäppi in 19th made it a great team result for the Swiss!
The clear winners in this block are Team UBS, thanks to a dominant Vineyards performance and a great team effort in Kigali. 287 points for the Swiss.
Then we have 5 teams separated by just 41 points; which is rather few given that the gap to UBS is over 60 points even for the closest team. That closest team is another one with strong links to Switzerland, with Sauber ending up with 223 points. Vineyards was pretty successful for them; Maroc and Kigali less so, but it's still a good amount of points.
And the 3rd Switzerland-related team is next, with Jura ending up just 3 points behind Sauber - scored in Vineyards and Kigali, just like UBS.
Indosat also finish above 200 points, scoring 205 in Morocco. Fastned round off the Top 5 with 195 points after a good outcome in Morocco as well, but Kigali wasn't enough to overtake Indosat. Kraftwerk with their great Vineyards performance end up just 3 points behind the Dutchmen.
It's then 41 points again down to 7th place, taken by Lampre with 151 points. Los Pollos are also in the Top 10, thanks to their surprise win in Plouay, totalling 135 points. Bralirwa and Xero round off the Top 10; Lierse, who are the final team above 100 points just miss out.
We then have a big lower midfield with no real gaps between Glanbia in 12th and Genii in 20th, making it 9 teams within 33 points. McCormick then are 17 points behind - but with only Plouay on their schedule, it's actually still a good performance.
Which cannot be said of Assa, scoring just 33 points in Maroc. It's even worse though for Spark and Colombini, who got 8 points from Vineyards in the former case, and just 6 from Morocco in the latter. These are the only single-digit scoring teams.
Here's the full numerical overview:
Team
Vin
Tre
Mar
Plo
Kig
Total
1
Team UBS - Tissot
230
0
0
0
57
287
2
Sauber Petronas Racing
153
0
48
0
22
223
3
Jura GIANTS
179
0
0
0
41
220
4
Indosat Ooredoo
0
0
205
0
0
205
5
Fastned
0
0
168
0
27
195
6
Kraftwerk Man Machine
192
0
0
0
0
192
7
Lampre - Pinarello
63
0
33
0
55
151
8
Los Pollos Hermanos
0
0
74
50
11
135
9
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
0
0
65
0
58
123
10
Xero Racing
0
0
85
26
0
111
11
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
0
0
92
0
9
101
12
Glanbia
86
0
0
0
0
86
13
Tryg - Gobyk
0
0
0
0
80
80
14
Trans Looney Tunes
0
0
70
6
0
76
15
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
0
0
67
0
0
67
16
Zwift Pro Cycling
0
0
60
0
3
63
17
DK Žalgiris
34
0
25
0
0
59
18
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
0
12
0
0
46
58
19
Sony - Force India
0
0
45
0
12
57
20
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
0
0
53
0
0
53
21
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
0
0
36
0
36
22
Assa Abloy
0
0
33
0
0
33
23
Spark-BNZ Racing
8
0
0
0
0
8
24
Colombini Cycling
0
0
6
0
0
6
Partial August Ranking | PTHC/HC
Just one day later than Vineyards, and hence clashing, started the Deutschland Tour. Basically a TTers' stage race with 4 stage win opportunities for sprinters. Basically... Not this time, with the peloton gifting a total of 1'38" to the sprinters!
I mean, Los Pollos wouldn't have needed that gift to come out on top. They're awesome in TTs anyway, and Zmorka proved this on day 3, by taking 2nd behind Würtz in the ITT. But due to the gaps, he only finished 4th on GC, with two sprintesr overtaking him. Luckily for Los Pollos, one of them was Manninen, who won the final stage and jumped up to 3rd on GC! Sütterlin finished 13th, so that's 3 in the Top 15 for the Mexicans! Sterbini added a strong 26th place to that - and all in all, Los Pollos end up with... 371 points, which is their highest score of the season, and 2nd best of the division behind the famous Pidcock show! It's also the highest score of the race, leaving all PT teams behind by more than 60 points!
So it's pretty understandable that the 2nd best PCT team got less than half of Los Pollos' points. And it's actually a rather unexpected name in 2nd place - and an even more unexpected GC result for them! It's Bralirwa, who had Silvestre in a fantastic 5th place - benefitting from the big 1'20" gap, yes, but also delivering a strong ITT to make a sensational Top 5! Politt finished 30th, with Verona and Young also in the Top 100. But their 3rd best scorer actually was Habimana, who was high up in the KoM standings until the final day, where he dropped to 6th. Mainly thanks to Silvestre's great GC result, it's 161 points for Bralirwa!
And it looks like you just had to be lucky with sprinters to score big here, as it's not the 2nd best TT team Assa rounding off the Top 3, but Jura! Sure, they have some decent TTers as well, but their top scorer was as unexpected as LPH's and Bralirwa's: It was Dylan Page! The Swiss wasn't even a Top 15 sprinter, but finished 8th, 3rd and 3rd on the first three sprint stages - and even took over the green jersey after stage 4! He ended up outside the points on the final day and lost the jersey, but still took 2nd, and ended up with 45 points. Bissegger was their highest GC finisher with 28th place - and also the best U25 rider, taking white. But one jersey wasn't enough, as Stehli joined the break on the final day and got the KoM shirt! Despite no notable GC result, it's 124 points for Jura.
The next PTHC race on the schedule was a classic, San Sebastian. The route would allow plenty of scenarios - climbers, puncheurs, hybrids winning - and it was a wide open race indeed.
In the end, Arndt surprised everyone with his attack, making it to the line despite not being the strongest downhill rider, taking a great win for DuckDuckGo - and making it two PTHC races in a row with the highest score going to PCT! He got 170 points for the win, with Henao, Guerreiro and Stannard each adding two more points for a Top 50 finish. 176 important points in the relegation fight!
Not fighting against relegation, but rather for promotion, are Jura. It was rather surprising to see them so high up - but young puncheur Schmid made perfect use of his good sprint speed to make it a 1-2 for PCT, taking the next spot behind Arndt! Errazkin added a Top 50 for Jura as well, with the Swiss ending up with 127 points.
And how much has been written in the past about "Failderman" - in this race, Kelderman didn't fail, but took a good 7th place and 60 points for Colombini - losing some points against DuckDuckGo, but gaining on all other relegation candidates.
The penultimate HC stage race of the year was the Post Danmark Rundt - an easier version of the Tour of Norway, with 3 sprint stages and a rather easy hilly stage - plus a GC-deciding TT.
Whereas Norway was a perfect fit for Dunbar, the Irishman didn't manage to shake off his main TT rivals in the Danish hills. So he came "only" 2nd in the GC - but Indosat had some amazing depth with Wolf in 9th and Kochetkov in 12th - plus 2nd in the team standings. And they even made up for sprinter Abdul Halil's blunder, with leadout Gani taking 5th and 2nd on the first two days. All in all, that's a season highscore of 261 points for the Indonesians - and 466 on one day, with the Yates-dominated Tour du Maroc finishing the same day...
The 2nd highest scoring team also had some serious issues with their sprinter; unlike Indosat, they couldn't make up for it, which in the end is roughly the difference between the two. On the other hand, 3 riders in the GC Top 10 is an amazing outcome for Jura nonetheless - Rekita, Brunel and Küng took 6th, 8th and 10th. Brunel easily won the white jersey, and Jura beat Indosat for the team standings win - despite no notable stage results and no GC Top 5, the Swiss still scored 240 points - highest score of the year for them as well!
Given their 1-3 in the ITT stage, this could have been an even higher scoring race for Los Pollos - however, Sütterlin was dropped on stage 3 and missed out on a good GC result. Zmorka, on the other hand, won his 3rd stage race in as many months, after dominating yet another ITT. Sütterlin in 22nd and Sterbini in 32nd were their other GC scorers (with the former obviously scoring on S5 as well), but instead of 300+ points, it's "only" 225 for the Mexicans. Who also missed out on an expected teams win, due to the unselective stage 3 that still was too selective for them.
It's pretty easy to see from the race summaries above that there was absolutely no way past the flying chicken in this block - Los Pollos dominate the partial ranking with 857 points! 1st in Germany, 3rd in Denmark, 2nd in Ras (and absent in San Sebastian). Brilliant, there's no two ways to qualify their performance!
Assa Abloy actually had a good month as well - especially in Ireland obviously. But Denmark wasn't too shabby, either, whereas in Germany their top PCT TTers were just decent TTers against this competition. They scored 599 points in total - almost 260 less than the Mexicans, despite doing all four races!
Another 100 points down, more precisely with 491 points, we find Jura. They got Top 3 scores in all of Deutschland, San Sebastian and Denmark, although no 300+ outcome like the Top 2. Still, taking 3rd in both partial rankings should see the Swiss take another big step towards surprise back-to-back promotions.
It's then almost 200 points down to the next team, with the Top 3 really being far away in this block. Zalgiris are 4th with 305 points, doing well in Denmark but just OK-ish in Ras Tailteann and San Sebastian.
And the rankings are finally getting more crowded in this region, with 4th and 11th being separated by just 86 points - less than we have between any two teams of the Top 4! 288 points were enough for Popo4Ever to round off the Top 5, with the vast majority of their points coming from Ras.
Indosat are 8 points behind, taking 6th place thanks to a great Denmark performance. With Dunbar not going to Germany, the scoring there was very slim.
DuckDuckGo and Tryg follow with 258 and 250 points respectively, the former winning in San Sebastian and the latter doing a decent job in Denmark. Sauber and Sony then round off the Top 10 with 228 and 225 points respectively. The former did well in Ras, the latter had two almost equally high scoring races in Denmark and Ireland.
Kraftwerk did pretty much the same as Sony, but 6 points lower in total, therefore missing out on the Top 10. It's then an almost 60 points gap to Bralirwa, who only raced in Germany - which they did surprisingly well though! Zwift are next with 152 points, with Spark in 14th being the final team above 100 points (110 to be precise).
Fastned with their 92 Denmark points round off the Top 15, one points ahead of McCormick who did 3 races. Lierse, Glanbia, Trans and Colombini are next, all four of them within 16 points from each other.
The last teams who actually raced in this block are Genii, scoring 38 points from 3 races, and Xero, getting 23 points from Ras. Lampre and UBS did none of these four races, hence the logical zero-pointer.
Here are the numbers for the higher categories block:
Team
Deu
SanS
Dan
Ras
Total
1
Los Pollos Hermanos
371
0
225
261
857
2
Assa Abloy
85
50
148
316
599
3
Jura GIANTS
124
127
240
0
491
4
DK Žalgiris
0
22
181
102
305
5
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
0
0
31
257
288
6
Indosat Ooredoo
19
0
261
0
280
7
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
0
176
51
31
258
8
Tryg - Gobyk
64
27
126
33
250
9
Sauber Petronas Racing
0
0
71
157
228
10
Sony - Force India
0
0
103
122
225
11
Kraftwerk Man Machine
0
0
110
109
219
12
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
161
0
0
0
161
13
Zwift Pro Cycling
62
0
72
18
152
14
Spark-BNZ Racing
43
12
55
0
110
15
Fastned
0
0
92
0
92
16
McCormick Pro Cycling
34
39
18
0
91
17
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
0
37
39
0
76
18
Glanbia
0
24
17
23
64
19
Trans Looney Tunes
0
0
0
62
62
20
Colombini Cycling
0
60
0
0
60
21
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
25
4
9
0
38
22
Xero Racing
0
0
0
23
23
23
Lampre - Pinarello
0
0
0
0
0
24
Team UBS - Tissot
0
0
0
0
0
Period Ranking | August
Please, forget everything I said last month about 936 points being impressive and a PpRD of 34.67 being fantastic. I just couldn't imagine any team doing better. Well, I was wrong.
Los Pollos actually almost got the 1,000 points this month - after their Plouay win, the counter stops at 992! With 23 race days spent, that's a PpRD of 43.13 - what a month, what a dominance! The division leaders crushing the opposition - clearly someone's on a mission!
Being on a mission, that definitely holds for the next team as well - and Jura definitely did far better than expected this month! 711 points are almost 300 points less than Los Pollos, but it's still easily the 2nd highest score after being 3rd in both blocks. The Swiss' PpRD of 37.4 is "only" #3 this month, though - but any Top 5 result basically is fine for their mission, which is back-to-back promotions!
3rd place goes to Assa with 632 points - they actually scored exactly half of their August points in just 3 days (and one race)! After a couple of subpar results, they're definitely back on track now - as confirmed with their 30.1 PpRD average, which is the 5th best this month.
Behind the Top 3, it's a gap of roughly 150 points to 4th place and Indosat. The Indonesians basically had one strong race each from Yates and Dunbar, which alongside some minor results was enough to net them 485 points. A PpRD of 26.9 is "only" #6, but should still be solid enough for now.
Then we have Sauber in 5th place, scoring 451 points with two almost equal blocks. They spent 21 RDs to get there, which is the shared 3rd highest amount of the month (with only Los Pollos and Zwift topping them with 23 RDs), so not an outstanding PpRD - but definitely another great step towards safety!
Kraftwerk in 6th are the final team above 400 points, and they only needed 13 race days to achieve this. Which is rewarded by the 4th best PpRD of the month - great news given that they were on the last safe spot by the end of July!
Zalgiris and Popo4Ever follow with 364 and 355 points respectively, both having a clearly stronger PTHC/HC block. Which also holds for Tryg and DuckDuckGo - the final Top 10 teams, and the final ones above 300 points.
Missing out on the Top 10 is one of the expected title contenders, Fastned. Racing in Denmark without a TTer obviously wasn't too promising, even though they got some good points from the sprints. But only 287 points in 13 race days is surely not the outcome they were hoping for this month.
The situation is entirely different for the other team scoring 287 points - Team UBS. They only did two races this month, for a total of 7 RDs - and with 41.0, they have the second best PpRD in August despite doing just C1 races!
Bralirwa and Sony follow just 3 and 5 points behind, both racing more than UBS and at least as much as Fastned, hence having a lower PpRD. With Fastned and Bralirwa, we have 2 Top 5 teams down here, with LPH, Jura, Assa and Indosat taking the Top 4 spots in August... Ranking implications? We'll get there soon!
Zwift are the last team above 200 points, rounding off the Top 15 - they're almost 70 points behind the previously mentioned block of 4, though. And with 9.4, their PpRD isn't great for this amount of used-up RDs... Only 5 teams did worse.
It's then a 40 points gap to Lierse in 16th, whereas another 60 points further down we arrive at 22nd place, so the tail end is pretty crowded! In order, we have Lierse, Lampre, Glanbia, Trans, Xero, McCormick and Spark within this range. Glanbia, McCormick and Spark were the least efficient teams among those, all having a bottom-5 PpRD in August.
Only two teams were even worse, failing to score 100 points - Genii and Colombini. The former have the lowest PpRD of the month with 5.1, with the latter just a tad higher. For some of these backmarkers, it's really bad news in the relegation fight, whereas for others it could be the end of their promotion hopes.
But before we look at the full rankings, here are the August scores:
Team
C1/C2
PTHC/HC
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Los Pollos Hermanos
135
857
992
23
43.13
2
Jura GIANTS
220
491
711
19
37.42
3
Assa Abloy
33
599
632
21
30.10
4
Indosat Ooredoo
205
280
485
18
26.94
5
Sauber Petronas Racing
223
228
451
21
21.48
6
Kraftwerk Man Machine
192
219
411
13
31.62
7
DK Žalgiris
59
305
364
21
17.33
8
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
67
288
355
14
25.36
9
Tryg - Gobyk
80
250
330
19
17.37
10
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
58
258
316
15
21.07
11
Fastned
195
92
287
13
22.08
12
Team UBS - Tissot
287
0
287
7
41.00
13
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
123
161
284
13
21.85
14
Sony - Force India
57
225
282
16
17.63
15
Zwift Pro Cycling
63
152
215
23
9.35
16
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
101
76
177
15
11.80
17
Lampre - Pinarello
151
0
151
13
11.62
18
Glanbia
86
64
150
17
8.82
19
Trans Looney Tunes
76
62
138
11
12.55
20
Xero Racing
111
23
134
11
12.18
21
McCormick Pro Cycling
36
91
127
14
9.07
22
Spark-BNZ Racing
8
110
118
17
6.94
23
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
53
38
91
18
5.06
24
Colombini Cycling
6
60
66
10
6.60
Full Ranking
With the division leader scoring the highest amount of points this month, it's obvious that Los Pollos are still on top of the PCT rankings! But not only on top - after some lower scoring months, they're now dominating the division - one could even suppose they were just playing games with the others when they had some rather mediocre races.
With two months to go, the Mexicans have a points tally of 3,872. Just to put it in relation: that's 83 points less than Amaysim's winning 2022 score! With projections having Los Pollos at almost 4,300 points, it's pretty obvious that they'll beat this record score for the current setting (with reduced RDs). Promotion is safe, and so is the division title - congrats for another fantastic month!
Why is the division title locked up? Well, because the next team is more than 600 points behind right now! The next team surprisingly still is Jura, who even managed to clearly improve their situation. They still have 29 RDs left, which is reflected by a PpRD of 24.22. Again, just to relate - with 3,246 points, they currently have 11 points less than Carlsberg in 5th place at the end of the 2022 season. Back-to-back promotions are looking pretty likely now after another great month!
We then have a really close fight for 3rd place - which is currently taken by Indosat, gaining another spot. 2,965 points is their current score, and with one race each left for Dunbar (Britain) and Yates (Japan?) it's hard to see them miss out on promotion. Their own prediction of "mid-table mediocrity" surely looks like a huge understatement by now.
Thanks to a great Dainese show in Ireland, Assa have jumped up from 7th to 4th - just 20 points behind Indosat! Having an additional RD left, their projection is exactly the same as for the Indonesians! However, having just Battenkill and Emilia left in the higher categories, compared to Tour of Japan and Japan Cup for Indosat, might be a handicap for the Scandinavians.
Next are Bralirwa, dropping from 3rd to 5th. In terms of PpRD, however, they're still 3rd - and of their 27 remaining RDs, only 5 are not in PTHC or HC! Could this be a decisive factor for the Rwandans? Currently, they're at 2,818 points, 127 behind Assa - but with 9 RDs more to spend...
Fastned definitely suffer from their pretty bad August result, dropping out of the promotion spots! With 2,657 points, they're more than 150 behind the Top 5 - but they also do have more RDs left than anyone else above them. And like Bralirwa, they have almost exclusively PTHC/HC races left - and some pretty nice Olivier RDs in stock. The current standings obviously must be disappointing for the Dutchmen, but promotion is still possible!
How close the promotion fight could be is reflected by the current projections - based on the current PpRD, less than 100 points would separate Bralirwa in 3rd and Fastned in 6th, and 100 points definitely isn't much! Whereas the first 2 spots currently seem to be locked up, we'll have 4 teams fighting for 3 promotion spots - and this fight might well be decided only in the very last race of the year!
But wait - can we already exclude all the other teams from the equation? Not quite - but something special would be needed for one of them to crack the Top 5 - and probably one of the Top 6 teams to crack.
Sony currently are "best of the rest", at least in terms of points. With 2,546, they're 270 points behind Bralirwa - and have 3 days less to race. Which is reflected by the PpRD, which is more than 2 points lower. They'll need Benoot in crazy form to get back in immediate contention!
Lierse are next, another 46 points behind - meaning they're currently at 2,500 points. But they only have 18 RDs left to do, with their top scorer being out of RDs already. Things are looking a bit better for Xero, whose 2,429 points are almost 400 less than Bralirwa, though. But with a PpRD of 18.4, they're currently closest to the Top 6 who are all above 20. But most importantly, they still have 31 RDs left - thereof 14 by Areruya! If any team outside the Top 6 could still enter the promotion zone, it would probably be Xero!
Objectively speaking, Lampre are in a very similar situation - just 25 points behind Xero, with one RD less remaining. But Lampre have no Areruya - so it's somewhat more difficult to see where that many points could come from. Depth, obviously, and cobbles, and hills. Especially in terms of hills, there's quite something left - but there's also quite some Areruya competition left... At least it's still looking good for a Top 10 for the Italians.
Next up are Popo4Ever and UBS, who swapped places. With 2,281 and 2,259 points, they're 120 to 150 points behind the Top 10, which could still be a target for them. However, P4E's PpRD doesn't suggest they'll make it - on the other hand, UBS have a higher scoring average than Lierse - and 17 additional RDs to close the 250 points gap.
Sauber are next - another 200 points further down, and with 141 RDs already spent. With 2,053 points, they're looking pretty safe in terms of relegation fight, but not necessarily in terms of Top 15 finish.
It's a similar situatio for Tryg and Zalgiris, who round off the Top 15. With 1,901 respectively 1,861 points, they're around 500 points clear of the relegation area - but they still have the 8th and 9th lowest projection currently. No immediate danger, but a bad run could change this pretty quickly...
McCormick are a bit further down, with 1,826 points - but with basically a ToA worth of RDs more to spend. Their PpRD currently projects them in 13th place, so they probably aren't really afraid of relegation anymore.
Which might be a different story for DuckDuckGo, currently at 1,745 points. While they even have a Top 15 PpRD right now, their RDs spent strongly suggests they'll participate in the ToA as well, just like McCormick - but they don't really have a GC favourite. They'll surely bet on Stannard in the end-of-season hills, but will it be enough?
Kraftwerk's situation looks almost identical - but with one major difference: we know that they always do well in ToA. And Ranaweera, who is confirmed to go there, will surely be a GC podium contender, with Haller likely getting a shot at the stage win record. I can't just see Kraftwerk go down - but just looking at the numbers, it could actually still happen...
Now, we're really getting to the hot zone. 19th place is the last safe spot - and it's currently taken by Zwift. Which doesn't sound bad - but a 40 points margin with an 18 RD deficit - or a PpRD difference of almost 1.5 to the closest chaser - isn't the best news.
It's even worse news knowing that the closest chasers currently are Colombini, and so we can expect a head-to-head fight between Powless and Reis against relegation in ToA! Despite the many TT kilometers, the latter seems to have a pretty important climbing advantage - and Colombini still have quite some Kelderman races left on top of that, whereas Zwift are almost done after ToA! A really tense battle incoming, that's for sure...
It's looking less hopeful for the other bottom-5 teams to be honest. Trans are 170 points behind safety, and while they should score in the hilly races rounding off the season, leaving behind both Colombini and Zwift won't be easy.
It's even close to impossible for Genii, currently totalling 1,145 points (or almost 300 less than Zwift). Even more so given that they have 142 RDs already done, and their 8.1 PpRD average being second lowest.
Then, we have Glanbia in 23rd. It's not looking great for them, either - but what might still give them some hope is that Eastman has been dominant in his only stage race so far. If he can repeat that both in ToA and Japan, well, he might miraculously save the Irishmen from relegation. But it's a long way to go. Too long?
The latter will almost certainly be the case for Spark. They have the lowest PpRD of the division by far, they trail even Glanbia by more than 200 points - and Zwift by almost 600 points. It looks like a rebuild year in CT incoming for them...
Here are the full details:
Pos
Last
Team
Total
RD
PpRD
Proj
1
1
Los Pollos Hermanos
3872
147
26.34
4293
2
2
Jura GIANTS
3246
134
24.22
3948
3
4
Indosat Ooredoo
2965
146
20.31
3311
4
7
Assa Abloy
2945
145
20.31
3311
5
3
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
2818
136
20.72
3377
6
5
Fastned
2657
132
20.13
3281
7
9
Sony - Force India
2546
139
18.32
2986
8
6
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
2500
145
17.24
2810
9
8
Xero Racing
2429
132
18.4
2999
10
10
Lampre - Pinarello
2404
133
18.08
2947
11
12
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
2281
138
16.53
2694
12
11
Team UBS - Tissot
2259
128
17.65
2877
13
14
Sauber Petronas Racing
2053
141
14.56
2373
14
15
Tryg - Gobyk
1901
138
13.78
2246
15
16
DK Žalgiris
1861
135
13.79
2248
16
13
McCormick Pro Cycling
1826
113
16.16
2634
17
17
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
1745
119
14.66
2390
18
19
Kraftwerk Man Machine
1730
118
14.66
2390
19
20
Zwift Pro Cycling
1430
130
11
1793
20
18
Colombini Cycling
1390
112
12.41
2023
21
21
Trans Looney Tunes
1262
127
9.94
1620
22
22
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
1145
142
8.06
1314
23
23
Glanbia
1057
117
9.03
1472
24
24
Spark-BNZ Racing
849
131
6.48
1056
September has two of the biggest remaining races, with the PCT GT Tour of America and Balkans as the final PTHC stage race - plus the last cobbled classics of the year. Stay tuned for the next update - it sure will be an important one!
Well, it's a pretty different picture in PCT than in PT. Whereas in PT, we don't find any sprinters in the Top 10, the PCT individual standings are led by two sprinters!
With a great performance in Ras Tailteann, Alberto Dainese has jumped up from 4th to the top, totalling 1,050 points. He should have one more race left, and whereas his manager surely will regret some poor results, he can be happy with the total score - which is just 16 points less than Ahlstrand's winning score last year...
Matti Manninen did an even more impressive jump, up to 2nd from 11th. Great GC results in Germany and Ireland saw him score 377 points this month, bringing his total up to 982. Will he crack the 1,000 as well?
Eddie Dunbar stays in 3rd place, despite the two sprinters passing him. With 907 points, he's 75 behind Manninen and 143 behind Dainese - a gap he could close with a great Tour of Britain, which is his last race of the year.
Sam Oomen, who has already finished his 2022 season, drops from 1st to 4th, with Joseph Areruya suffering the same fate, losing 3 spots from 2nd to 5th. However, the latter still has plenty of scoring opportunities left - the individual standings win definitely is on the table for him!
Adam Yates gained two spots after another stellar performance, winning Tour du Maroc. Another race left for him, meaning that with 822 points currently to his name, he might still reach 1,000 points as well.
Joeri Stallaert has dropped from 5th to 7th, having one cobbled race and some other races left iirc. Marlen Zmorka also did a huge jump, after scoring 337 points this month - him and Manninen would actually have been enough to win the month... Up to 8th from 21st, a great improvement!
Despite doing well in Denmark, Dylan Groenewegen still dropped 2 spots, from 7th to 9th. Whereas Yoann Paillot held onto his 10th place with 747 points, just 5 behind the Dutch sprinter.
Besides Manninen and especially Zmorka, the biggest improver in the Top 20 is Zabel (28 -> 18). Silvestre (48 -> 29) and Bennett (43 -> 31) also made some decent progress - with San Sebastian winner Arndt being the best improver in the Top 50 in terms of absolute numbers, jumping from outside the Top 100 to 47th.
Don't have a ton of scoring opportunities left, but we probably chillin, should end up with about 2000 points in the end which should be good enough this year as it's very top heavy. Or Halvorsen just wins Riga and I can zzz
Their PpRD currently projects them [McCormick] in 13th place, so they probably aren't really afraid of relegation anymore.
Hmm, I think we are always afraid of that. It probably does look OK as we start the ToA ahead on pts and pprd versus of all the other TOA contenders so even a reasonable performance should keep us ahead of most of them. But if things were to go badly wrong there . . . . at least 14 of our other race days are probably 0 pointers and the rest will require our puncheurs to have kept their mojo after a long break. Our goal was top 15 and this is our first time outside that, not sure we get that back even with a good TOA, unfortunately.
August was never going to be good but had hoped to get a little more out of Denmark particularly.
Congrats to Nemo for putting together a dominant team and the author for bravely recognizing that, just maybe, JURA are for real (and for putting together a back-to-back promotion team).
Interesting that the top sprinters have done well in the PCT as opposed to PT, maybe because they have the advantage of going to PTHC races and being in the second tier.
These updates are just ridiculous quality and effort Fabianski, really can't praise and thank you enough for your love of the game and contribution
Apart from the Rheden/Battenkill double-0-point-header it's gonna be an action packed run-in for us with a bunch of Areruya races, Houle defending in Euskal and also in Lugano where he was 4th last year, and Bennett in Japan. The key will be Bennett and Houle actually performing as they can which I have some real doubts about Bennett doing and almost zero faith in Houle doing - despite his stats suggesting a small drop-off to last year, PCM just hasn't treated him as a real guy which does make for some interesting research into stat thresholds.
Right now I wouldn't be shocked to end the season where we are but I think the projected rankings look fairly likely, would be hoping within my expectations to hit closer to that 3200ish mark to sit closer to 6th than 8th (at least based on Fastned and Sony's PpRD).
Spoiler
If we were really going to maximise things and hit our targets the rest of the way then technically we'd project towards a podium fight but there's just no way we hit that consistency and quality - still was fun to create that number
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." [PT] Xero Racing
Man, this is so close! I think the Top 3 are pretty safe, and I'm reasonably confident we can keep Sony and Lierse behind us. But I think it's fairly realistic (though not a given) that Fastned overtake us, and honestly, looking at what Xero has left, I wouldn't be shocked at all if jandal's correct and they even get close to the podium.
On the other hand, maaaybe we have a chance to overtake Assa Abloy again if we do really well, but then we could still be looking at 6th place. With so much variance in the remaining races though, it's kind of pointless to make any predictions Promotion is still very much possible, but if I were to give odds, I think they've dropped below 50% now (if they ever were above that).
In the relegation battle, I believe it comes down to Zwift vs Colombini. I agree that Eastman could score extremely well in America, but as mentioned, Reis and Powless should as well, too much for Glanbia to overcome I'm affraid. Unless Eastman has more racedays yet?
Lovely recap as always, Fabianski, thank you very much!
It's actually frustrating we're not completely eliminated yet, despite very poor results from everyone except Novak. Thanks for another interesting update Fabi!
Ouch...didn`t have the race categories in mind, when guessing, my month was rather solid instead of dropping.
RD used only positive now, need to improve.
The lack of TT riders is just huge in the promotion fight. In especially when Groenewegen is hit by no performances in 50% of his races, which also to a more extreme goes for Vansevenant, even though here it had to be expected.
Thanks for the update and write up and let`s hope for some better.
No idea yet how to keep the team together if being another year in PCT.
All jokes aside. This season is such a disappointment for us. I'd say we still have a decent shot to get out from relegation danger but so much can happen in this game that we could aswel go down again. Would be a gutpunch if we did. Kelderman has shown a sliver of his skill in San Sebastian and still has decent scoring races to go. Reis amongst a whole group of favorites could hit big in America. Considering the amount of racedays compared to others in the relegation zone we should be good. Kelderman is present in the Balkans aswel as Milano, Cycliste, Japan, and Emilia. Even if he doesn't win in any of them, with Cycliste, Japan, and Emilia being Win goals, a decent performance should give us the edge in the relegation battle. But only if Reis performs in our 4th and final Win goal, ToA. It could very well be a super ennding to the season, considering the fact that Kelderman still has 14 racedays left spread over 5 races. Reis still has 21 racedays left, but would need stage victories and a GC win (or atleast podium) to make it worthwhile.
Even if they perform we'll never reach the minimum goal of a top 10 I had set for myself. My total faith is in these old boys, Colombini forever!
I love to see the battle at the top however. Mentor and great friend Nemolito taking the title here would make me oh so proud. And any team still in the race is a worthy promotion candidate in my eyes! Good luck and god bless!
Finally took the time to look back on the season. Sorry for missing out on most of it, but real life has been very unforgiving lately.
Team is struggling to get going this season, but I reckon this was to be expected, despite off-season predictions rather sympathetic to us. Stannard and to a lesser extent, Debesay, being the unsung heroes of this forgetful season. Arndt as well now with the unexpected win in San Sebastian.
It's all building up well for a dramatic Tour of America as always at the bottom of the table.
Thanks for a sensational update Fab, and thanks to all reporters whom I haven't been lauding and thanking for all these months.
It seems like a struggle to even hold on to top 10 all of the sudden. Max Daniel literally with 0 highrolls this season is starting to take its toll on our overall season. Coutinho is done for the season and has had miserable luck in all sprints this year, was banking on at least 300 from him, but whether that's the game or my planning we will never know.
I think we can fully give up on vying for the promotion spots, as sad as it is, it will 100% complicate the full scale rebuild that I have to do come end of season, but it is what it is.
Hoping that Meurisse and Turgis's return to racing in the end of the season at least will give me something to look forward to because I must admit that these last few months have not been kind to us.
Given the races and leaders we had, our month was quite good despite Vesely and Ringheim failing in Denmark and Kigali, respectively. We moved up to 7th, which I wasn't really expecting, but the gap to the Top 5 looks to be too big to close down now, as I already mentioned would be the case after the previous rankings update. We are 220 points off our own score from last season, and it is still very likely that we'll beat that score (unless everyone flops in the last two months!), but still be 8th again, or worse! Goes to show what an incredibly talented set of teams are battling for promotion this time! Have to say that the Top 2 are definitely sure of promotion though!
Coming to our riders, Vesely has finished off his season with a good result in Ras, and his points total is way above what I was expecting. Choi has just one race to go, which is in October, and Ringheim finishes off his season next month. Benoot still has 6 races to ride, and where we end up this season is all in his hands now...
Thanks for the great rankings update again Fabianski
Once again thank you Fabianski for an amazing recap. Outstanding.
As a Los Pollos manager I'm obviously not only happy with your work, but also with how the team has performed in this month. Six races, four of them amazing, one quite nice and one not superb as expected.
Manninen and Zmorka went two years back in time when they destroyed their competition in PCT and both finished in top-5, and delivered us promotion. Same thing happening again now, because it looks like Manninen will finish top-5 again, and hopefully go over the 1.000 points again (depending on Riga). Zmorka scored a bit less in total but simply had less racedays to spend this time, but anywhere he went, he either won the ITT there was, or the GC if it wasn't a mountainous stage race or whatever. He won't win Arenberg, but that doesn't count for me anyway After Baugnies in season one they really gave Los Pollos Hermanos a true identity for the past three seasons, and it will be an honour to see them close the sponsoring of LPH with a superb season, promotion to PT and possibly a division title.
Nevertheless got to applaud others as well this month. Zepuntke didn't have his favourite race, but still did okay and has a very nice points total for never being our most supported rider or looking for a calendar specifically for him, and that also counts for Aular. Great last few races for him to end his season as a leader, and even though Maroc didn't bring a huge amount of points, he really did well against the tough competition there. Sütterlin performed very strong again in the Danish and German time trials and is officially done for the season with a very nice amount of points as well, whereas homeboy Ruiz delivered us perhaps the most beautiful win of the team's history. He was there from day one, learned from the very best (Quispe, obviously), and then won Plouay in one of the last races of the team. Just for that, one day, we should start looking at Peruvian sponsors. Also to honour the best rider in the game, obviously.
Last races of the year coming up for us with quite a big ToA-gap, but we'll be following that race closely with a strong field present and many likeable managers going for points there. Once again, thank you for the fabulous update, Fab. This title race is not over!
A good month for us overall. Expected to get a bit more out of Deutschland, where Paillot for the first time this season had a weak race. Thankfully Dainese came through with an amazing performance in Ras Tailteann, which means that there is still some hope for promotion.
Not loving our remaining calendar, though. Really just 5 races left where we have some hope of scoring, and in four of them we are putting our faith in Gesbert, who just hasn’t been reliable so far this season. Paillot’s season is over and Dainese just has Lugano left, which probably is too hilly for him. We have a decent gap to 6th, but Fastned, Bralirwa, Xero could very well all pass us.
Will be interesting to follow the last few races, both the ones we are racing and the ones we aren’t! Congrats also to Nemo on an outstanding season!
Promotion is still very much possible, but if I were to give odds, I think they've dropped below 50% now (if they ever were above that). 
After Baugnies in season one they really gave Los Pollos Hermanos a true identity for the past three seasons, and it will be an honour to see them close the sponsoring of LPH with a superb season, promotion to PT and possibly a division title.
