Relegation Watch 2025: Tour de France will be key to WorldTour survival for Cofidis, Picnic-PostNL - analysis

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With the Critérium du Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse now done, the fight to remain in the WorldTour turns to the Tour de France, where the most points of the season are on offer through stage wins, time in the leader's jersey and the final overall classification.

To date, UAE Team Emirates-XRG lead the way in both the 2023-2025 Team Rankings that will determine the top 18 teams eligible for the next three years of the WorldTour as well as the 2025 rankings, used to establish which ProTeams earn automatic invitations to the Grand Tours.

With their points piling as high as a hoarder's stash, the team of Tadej Pogačar have a lead of over 27,000 points across the past three years on second-placed Visma-Lease A Bike.

The difference between the two is more points than seven of the other WorldTour teams have scored in three years - shocking!

Behind Visma-Lease A Bike, Lidl-Trek are third in the hierarchy, just ahead of Soudal-QuickStep and Ineos Grenadiers.

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe – predicted by many to be one of the top teams of the year – are lagging in sixth in the triennial rankings, with Alpecin-Deceuninck not far behind.

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There's a big jump between the seventh-placed team of Mathieu van der Poel and the next teams. Groupama-FDJ, Bahrain Victorious and Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale are within 1,200 points of each other.

EF Education-EasyPost and Lotto are separated by less than 300 points in 11th and 12th, while Movistar, Israel-Premier Tech and Jayco-AlUla are sitting relatively comfortably in 13th, 14th and 15th, respectively.

Things get a bit more unstable as we get down to Intermarché-Wanty in 16th. They are soon to be overtaken by the rapidly advancing XDS Astana Team, who have climbed from 21st in the 2023-2024 rankings to now 17th in the three-year tally.

Intermarché-Wanty are 22nd in the 2025 UCI Team Rankings and will be praying that Biniam Girmay can come through during the Tour de France with a repeat victory in the green jersey competition.

XDS Astana's progress slowed over the past three weeks, although Diego Ulissi's win in the Giro dell'Appennino (and teammate Simone Velasco's third place) today shows the team aren't veering off their track.

The Kazakh team have a reinvigorated Team Picnic-PostNL hot on their heels, just 66 points behind in 18th place.

That leaves Cofidis sitting in the relegation zone along with Arkéa-B&B Hotels. Despite Kévin Vauquelin's second place in the Tour de Suisse, Arkéa are still 3,108 points behind Picnic-PostNL in 21st place and are at the most risk of being relegated.

Cofidis can still hold out hope that a strong Tour de France will be their salvation. They're just 352 points down on Picnic-PostNL and will be fighting for every possible opportunity to score in July.

Cofidis has a potential contender for the Tour de France in Emanuel Buchmann – 11th in the Dauphiné – while Picnic-PostNL will be hoping that Oscar Onley can come through with a strong performance after his third place in the Tour de Suisse.

2025 Team Rankings - The fight for 2026 wildcards

Almost as pressing as the WorldTour relegation fight is the battle between the ProTeams, as well as teams who get relegated, for the three automatic invitations to the 2026 Grand Tours for the top ProTeams of 2025.

After the first five months of the season, Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto are the top contenders to be promoted to the WorldTour in 2026 after suffering relegation in 2022, and Uno-X Mobility lead the way for the automatic invitations.

However, considering Lotto's utterly dismal season to date, there are numerous questions about their future.

Lotto wasn't able to hold onto most of their top riders in the 2024-2025 transfers, with Victor Campenaerts, Pascal Eenkhoorn, Maxim Van Gils, Florian Vermeersch, Mathijs Paasschens and Sylvain Moniquet all leaving for other WorldTour teams.

They also have staked most of their hopes on sprinter Arnaud De Lie, but has the pressure got to the 23-year-old? He has but a single victory this year - a stage of Etoile de Bessèges - after suffering from a knee injury and illness in the spring, and another crash at the Antwerp Port Epic earlier this month.

Yet Lotto are confident that De Lie will be a factor at the Tour de France.

"He'll be there," team manager Stéphane Heulot said this week. "The timing's been close but I'm delighted with his evolution in the last week. I've found the Arnaud again that I knew before. Motivated and determined. He's doing fine."

With the team's results in 2023 and 2024, it would take a massive disaster for them not to stay in the top 18 and have the chance to be promoted - even if they do have the lowest points tally of any of the top 24 teams this year - they are still on track to finish well inside the top 18 at the end of the year in the 2023-2025 team rankings.

There is a chance that Lotto could choose not to step back up to the WorldTour and remain a ProTeam. It would give them far more flexibility in their calendar, but it would also mean they would have to be in the top three teams for 2025 to get automatic invitations to the Grand Tours and other WorldTour races.

Right now, that is not looking good for the Belgian outfit. They are light years behind the top ProTeams not likely to be promoted to the WorldTour: Uno-X Mobility, Tudor and Q36.5. If they want to be in the Tour de France next year, Lotto will be counting on promotion.

Q36.5, led by Tom Pidcock, benefited the most from the UCI's recent decision to extend the number of teams for Grand Tours and WorldTour stage races to 23 and add a third team to the automatic invitation list.

They are high on the probability list to be in the Tour de France and all of the other WorldTour races next year.

Although they'll be top of the list for wildcards for the Tour de France, TotalEnergies aren't assured of anything for 2026. They have been only slightly less lacklustre than Lotto this year and are in a sticky situation among the ProTeams.

TotalEnergies are far behind Uno-X Mobility, Tudor and Q36.5, so automatic invitations aren't looking very assured for the French team.

Additionally, their title sponsor is reportedly close to inking a multi-million pound deal to support Ineos Grenadiers. Whether or not that means a merger between the two teams or joint sponsorship is yet unknown.

Predictions

With more than half of the season behind us, the picture becomes a little more clear when it comes to what to expect for promotions and relegation.

Based simply on the average points scored per week, XDS Astana are on a path to overtake Intermarché-Wanty after the Tour de France.

Oscar Onley's third place overall in the Tour de Suisse and the team's fine Giro d'Italia have nudged Picnic-PostNl onto a path that closely parallels Cofidis' - if the status quo remains the German team should avoid being overtaken.

While averages aren't the only factor for predicting what the rankings will look like come October, they do show how close the margins can be for the WorldTour teams hoping to remain in the top 18.

Picnic-PostNl and Cofidis are separated by only 300 points, and that's one WorldTour one-day race victory away from reversing. The predicted margin between Intermarché-Wanty and Picnic-PostNl is even tighter. Even Jayco-AlUla aren't out of the woods, yet, although their lead over the lower-ranked teams looks more solid.

It will make the Tour de France even more thrilling and dangerous as the stakes are the highest that they've been since 2022.