The Tudor Pro Cycling team scored a haul of UCI ranking points at the Giro d'Italia to lift them back into the top three places for 2027 WorldTour invitations but face a season-long battle with Pinarello-Q36.5, Cofidis and Unibet Rose Rockets to stay in contention.
According to the latest UCI team rankings, Pinarello-Q36.5 lead the battle for the automatic Wild Cards to all the 2027 WorldTour races, including the Tour de France, with 4975 points. Cofidis have 4847.74 and Tudor have 4547.84, while Unibet have 4246 points. The next team in the ranking, TotalEnergies, are much further behind, with a total of 2882.56.
"It's the ranking at the end of the season that counts," Tudor team owner Fabian Cancellara told Cyclingnews in Rome after congratulating his riders and staff for their efforts during the Corsa Rosa.
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"The ranking and fight for the WorldTour invitations sparks a lot of discussion but at the end of the day the UCI ranking points are important.
"You can win ten races and not have a lot of points but the wins won't get you into the 2027 WorldTour races, unless you consistently also score points. These are the rules we have to play by and we know that."
Australia's Michael Storer finished seventh overall in the Giro, and young French teammate Mathys Rondel was 11th, helping Tudor move past Unibet.
"Michael and Mathys had a good Giro, and we scored points and raced well. It was important to do both.
"Some people may say we weren't at the sharp end of the race but I'm proud that they both went on the attack in the Queen stage in the Dolomites and so went close to jumping up the GC.
"We almost turned the top ten upside down that day and that's what Tudor Pro Cycling is all about. We want to race, not just score points. We could have asked Mathys to sacrifice his GC result to chase stage wins and points but that didn't seem the right thing to do in his Grand Tour debut. We're also developing riders and the team for the future."
Tudor's 2016 UCI ranking points strategy has been hit by injury and illness. Stefan Küng is only just back in training after fracturing his femur at Omloop Nieuwsblad, while Marc Hirschi suffered in the Spring Classics, crashed at the Amstel Gold Race and then fractured his collarbone at La Flèche Wallonne.
Then there's Julian Alaphilippe, who also missed Liège-Bastogne-Liège after struggling in the Ardennes Classics, with the team giving him time to prioritise his health. The Frenchman is entered for the new-look Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes but the team's final line-up has still to be confirmed. Matteo Trentin will also return to racing in France after fracturing his collarbone in four places during a Tour of Flanders crash.
"We've been really unlucky with crashes and injuries from Omloop until the start of the Giro," Cancellara said.
"I don't think I'm arrogant to say that we would have scored more points if Julian, Marc, Stefan and Matteo had been able to race at their best. Arvid de Kleijn was also out of action until early May for personal and family reasons.
"When we made our plan during the winter, we drew up a theoretical plan. Now we're living and racing in the real world. We're behind where we should be. We can't pull back the points yet because our riders are still not fully recovered."
Cancellara is hoping his team leaders can be fit for the Tour de France but it is unsure if Küng can rebuild his fitness in time for July.
"We'll see, we need time and a lot of patience to get our riders back to their best," Cancellara said.
"There are always good and bad seasons in cycling. We hope we'll have a better second half to the season and we can plan and execute our strategy. We have the Tour coming up and all the other races in the season.
"We're growing as a team, we're ambitious for the future and overcoming setbacks is all part of the process."
