The 2024 season crowned UAE Team Emirates as the best team for the second consecutive year. Its leader, Tadej Pogacar, has scored more points than half of the WorldTeams this season. In terms of the relegation zone, the last month of the season has further opened the gap between DSM and Cofidis, 17th and 18th in the rankings, with their rivals in the relegation zone, Arkéa, Uno-X and Astana.
2023-2025 UCI Ranking
As you can see in the relegation ranking, DSM and Cofidis will face the final season of the triennium with more than 2,000 points lead ahead of Arkéa and Uno-X and about 5,000 points ahead of Astana. Further up the rankings, Intermarché, Jayco, Israel and Movistar have built up enough of a buffer to not suffer in 2025, unless one of those teams completes a truly terrible 2025 season.
With these differences, to provoke changes in the ranking it has to be the case that one of the three teams in the red zone (especially Astana) has a fantastic 2025 season and Cofidis or DSM have a mediocre season. In the case of DSM, the team’s trend is positive, with many youngsters developing, but Cofidis has already suffered in 2024 and has one of the most aged squads in the WorldTour. At least Ion Izagirre’s hard fought 4th place in Lombardia has given Cofidis some breathing space at the end of the season.
The economic crisis of Arkéa, which has had to release cyclists such as Champoussin or Albanese and paralyze the signing of Aranburu (he finally goes to Cofidis), makes the comeback in 2025 even more difficult. The contracts with sponsors Arkéa and B&B Hotels end in 2025 and manager Emmanuel Hubert has announced that the structure is at risk of disappearing.
In addition, Uno-X has failed to maintain its high level of the summer, although they managed to close the season with Magnus Cort's victory in the Veneto Classic. In the Norwegian team there was some unrest over the firing of Sports Director Kurt-Asle Arvesen (he will go to Ineos) after eight years with the team. The star signing for next season is Andreas Kron, but he is not expected to significantly increase the team's level.
Astana will be full of changes, with the star signings of Alberto Bettiol (he joined already in August), Diego Ulissi, Sergio Higuita and Wout Poels, but also others more strategic to score points, such as Mike Teunissen, Clément Champoussin or Aaron Gate. On the other hand, they lose Cavendish and Lutsenko. In any case, in recent years Astana has not been known for making the best use of its talents, except Cavendish.
Although Astana has been reinforced with several good scorers, it is most likely not enough to overcome the 4,720 UCI points disadvantage they have against Cofidis. Assuming that in 2025 Cofidis repeats its bad season of 2024 (7,890 UCI points), Astana would have to score at least 12610 points to overtake them, something only the top8 teams have achieved this season. To have a chance, Astana has to score the same UCI points in 2025 as it has scored in the last two seasons combined.
2024 Ranking
In the 2024 ranking, UAE Emirates finished with more than twice as many points as all other teams except Visma | Lease a Bike. UAE has scored 21% more points than last season, while Visma has scored 31% less. Tudor (+108%), Decathlon (+75%), Uno-X (+36%) and Red Bull (+27%) are the most improved teams this season, while Bahrain (-39.7%), Visma (-31%) and Cofidis (-24.4%) are the most worsened.
As for the points obtained by race category, it can be seen that the top WorldTeams get the vast majority of their points (around 70%) in WorldTour races, while the teams in the lower half of the ranking are more dependent on the continental circuit. Cofidis (48%), Lotto (46%), Astana (45%), Arkéa (39%) or Uno-X (32%) have scored less than half of their points in the WorldTour.
A team that barely scores on the WorldTour calendar has a very difficult time making up the deficit on the smaller calendar. For example, in 2024 Uno-X was the 3rd best team on the continental calendar (including ProSeries, .1 and lower), only beaten by UAE and Lotto, but it was only good enough to finish 18th in the annual ranking. With the points system used until 2022, which gave more importance to the smaller races, Uno-X would have finished 13th in the 2024 annual ranking and would be in the WorldTour promotion places.
In the graph below you can see how the relegation ranking would be with the old points system. Surely, if the old points system continued, teams like Movistar or DSM would be forced to cover a large part of the continental calendar in 2025, sacrificing the preparation of the most important races. The current scoring system better represents the real strength of the teams and prestige of the various races, giving much more weight to Grand Tours and Monuments.
In the interactive chart below, you can see the UCI points of all the riders of the 22 teams aiming for WorldTour licenses.
2025 Wildcards
Regarding the ProTeams ranking, Lotto and Israel will again have wildcards to the entire WorldTour calendar in 2025, before presumably achieving the WorldTour license in 2026. Uno-X will again have wildcards to all WorldTour one-day races in 2025.
This ranking will be more exciting next season, as the relegated WorldTeams (probably Arkéa and Astana) will compete against the best ProTeams (especially Uno-X and Tudor) to secure wildcards to the 2026 WorldTour. In that sense, Astana's signings may at least serve to be competitive in this ranking and soften the effect of relegation to the second division.
While relegation has barely affected Lotto and Israel in recent seasons, the situation will be different for the teams relegated in 2025. Uno-X and Tudor, which has signed Hirschi and Alaphilippe, will be very tough contenders in the fight for automatic wildcards each season. Also Q36.5 could become a serious contender in the coming seasons if they aim to sign riders of Tom Pidcock's caliber.
On another note, Corratec Vini Fantini has finished outside the top40 of the team ranking and will not be able to apply for a wildcard for the 2025 Giro d'Italia. From next season onwards, ProTeams will have to finish in the top30 of the annual team ranking to have the right to apply for wildcards to Grand Tours. Considering that there are 18 WorldTeams, at least 5 of the 17 ProTeams will be outside the top30.
Thanks Raul, it looks like the next 3 year cycle could see the rise of Uno-X and Tudor rather than the relegated teams regenerating.
Thank you for the great coverage! I notice that the new points system favors quite heavily the incumbents (meaning, the teams already in WT) over the rising Continental teams. Even though the old system was not good, I feel a bit disappointed by the change. The excitement and tension over the relegation battle coming next year are not as high as three years ago.
Thanks for the graphs. Question: How does UAE WITHOUT the points scored by Pogaçar would look like against other World Tour teams? I still think they are first in the world right?
Pogačar scored 11600 points.
The advantage of UAE over Visma is ~10000 points, so UAE without Pogačar would end just a bit behind Visma, but still quite far ahead of Soudal (in 3rd).
I think you mean POGACAR scored 11,600 points in 1 YEAR. In the past two years he scored ~20,000 points. But this really isnt a fair comparison because visma also have big point scorers like VAN AERT and VINGEGAARD
Thanks for this, always look fwd to this analysis