The Astana Qazaqstan team is undergoing a transformation after major investment from Chinese brand XDS Carbon-Tech, with Britain's Pete Kennaugh and Alex Dowsett joining the team for 2025 to help drive the change.
Dan Benson revealed that Dowsett will become the team's performance engineer on his Substack channel, while Cyclingnews understands that Kennaugh will become a directeur sportif.
Mark Renshaw will also remain as a directeur sportif after working closely with Mark Cavendish in 2023 and 2024. Cavendish officially retired at the Tour de France Singapore Criterium on Sunday and could also have an ambassador or management role in the Chinese-backed team.
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Astana Qazaqstan did not immediately reply when contacted by Cyclingnews.
Team manager Alexander Vinokourov has signed 12 new riders to try to score enough points to remain in the WorldTour in 2026 when new three-licences are rewarded.
Alexey Lutsenko has moved to Israel-Premier Tech but new riders include Alberto Bettiol, who has already joined, Wout Poels, Diego Ulissi, Mike Teunissen, Sergio Higuita, Clément Champoussin and Kiwi sprinter Aaron Gate.
The team's title sponsors are still to be announced but riders recently began to collect their X-Lab branded 2025 bikes, made by XDS Carbon-Tech.
Cyclingnews first revealed the XDS Carbon-Tech investment after seeing Vinokourov with Chinese representatives in Florence ahead of the Grand Départ of the Tour de France.
Astana Qazaqstan missed the initial UCI WorldTour registration deadline due to the wording of the bank guarantee document. However, directeur sportif Stefano Zanini has recently said the issues have been resolved. The team will gather in Spain in December for a winter training camp and is expected to reveal their 2025 line-up, bikes and sponsors before Christmas.
Dan Benson revealed that Dowsett worked with Cavendish in the wind tunnel to help him target his record-breaking 35th stage victory at the Tour de France.
"It’s a dream job," Dowsett said of his role as Performance Engineer, which has been created to take advantage of Dowsett’s performance and bike expertise.
"After I helped him highlight some areas he could improve, namely with the aero bottles at the Tour, which gave him a two per cent reduction in CDA on the Wilier, he recommended to the team that they take me on."
Dowsett retired at the end of 2022 after winning multiple time trials and two stages at the Giro d'Italia. He will rejoin the world of pro cycling with Astana.
"There’s a new sponsor next year and I’ve been working with them on some real basic stuff, so making sure that the bikes are good. They're really good bikes but my process was to make sure that the bikes were good enough to go racing and then try and make them perfect."
