Two weeks on from our final relegation watch checkup, XDS Astana’s upward momentum within the 2023-2025 UCI Team Rankings has stalled, with the workforce lacking podiums in all the current main races. In the primary month of the season, the workforce had almost halved their factors hole to the highest 18 however haven’t made up as a lot floor this month.
Only the highest 18 groups within the 2023-2025 UCI Team Rankings will meet the sporting requirement towards a WorldTour licence for the 2026-2028 seasons. Astana have been trailing for the reason that starting of the present three-year cycle, having completed the 2023 season in twentieth and final 12 months in twenty first.
Since the beginning of the 2025 season, XDS Astana have made massive positive factors in wiping out a 4,720-point hole to 18th-placed Cofidis, however the French workforce have to date held off their problem.
From January 25 to February 25, XDS Astana gained 1,322 extra factors than Cofidis, largely due to the outcomes of Christian Scaroni. From February 25 to March 25, the Kazakh workforce earned solely 755 greater than their French counterparts, with Scaroni injured in a crash in Strade Bianche.
However, their season common factors per week nonetheless have XDS Astana closing extra shortly on the highest 18 than rivals Arkéa-B&B Hotels and Uno-X Mobility. XDS Astana are ranked second this season behind UAE Team Emirates-XRG whereas Cofidis are a distant seventeenth.
Bright spots for XDS Astana in current weeks embody Clément Champoussin’s and Harold Tejada’s high 10s total in Paris-Nice, Scaroni’s second place in Trofeo Laigueglia, and a trio of riders within the high 10 at Faun-Ardéche.
The workforce suffered some dangerous luck in current weeks, with Cees Bol and Sergio Higuita being knocked out of competitors with damaged bones.
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Relegation hazard for Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Picnic-PostNL
The French workforce Arkéa-B&B Hotels have relied closely on Kévin Vauquelin for factors this season – he is gained a 3rd of their 1,057 factors this 12 months. Jenthe Biermans and Raul Garcia Pierna are the next-best scorers.
The workforce’s marquee sprinter Arnaud Démare has solely scored a few stage podiums, and the lack of Champoussin and Vincenzo Albanese in low season transfers has left the workforce weakened.
At twenty fourth within the present season rankings and dropping from nineteenth to twenty first within the three-year rankings, reported monetary worries for the French outfit have additional darkened their hopes of remaining within the WorldTour.
Picnic-PostNL have been simply barely forward of Cofidis, ending seventeenth in 2023 and sixteenth final 12 months. They’re method behind in twentieth this 12 months and are in peril of being handed by Cofidis within the coming weeks if each groups proceed scoring the identical.
A victory from Nils Eekhoff in Nokere Koerse and third within the Koksijde Classic helped stall their downward spiral, however the workforce should battle for each level to keep away from being relegated as they’ve however 103.58 factors over Cofidis as of March 25.
Promotion prospects
Lotto, at the moment tenth within the three-year rankings, and Israel-Premier Tech, in 14th, appear to be pretty protected prospects for regaining their WorldTour standing after shedding out within the first promotion/relegation cycle in 2022.
However, the Belgian workforce misplaced a slew of sturdy riders together with Victor Campenaerts, Maxim van Gils and Florian Vermeersch within the switch season. Worse, their star rider Arnaud De Lie has struggled since taking the workforce’s solely 2025 win to date at Etoile de Bessèges in January.
They’re method down in twenty fourth place within the 2025 rankings, and whereas they’ve an extended solution to fall to overlook out on the WorldTour, a few disastrous Grand Tours might damage. However, they’d must lose nearly 8,000 factors relative to Cofidis over the following seven months to drop out of the highest 18.
Israel-Premier Tech are in a stronger place, having saved most of their core workforce within the transfers. They’re sitting in sixteenth for the present season and 14th within the three-year rankings with a buffer of just about 3,500 factors over Cofidis.
As of the March 25 rankings, Uno-X Mobility are forward of XDS Astana and Arkéa-B&B Hotels within the three-year rankings, having closed extra of the hole to Cofidis. They sit in nineteenth with a spot of two,350 factors to the French workforce.
Magnus Cort’s sixth locations in Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo together with Tobias Halland Johannessen’s eleventh place in GC and a stage win by Fredrik Dversnes in Tirreno-Adriatico are the newest boosts to the workforce’s fortunes.
Unfortunately for newcomers Tudor Pro Cycling and Q36.5, their comparatively weak totals over the 2023 and 2024 seasons will most certainly make it unimaginable for both to succeed in the WorldTour in 2026. Tudor have 9,487 factors to make up and Q36.5 a whopping 11,228.
Any rider besides Tadej Pogačar, who scored 11,655 factors final 12 months between his Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, three Classic and World Championship victories, would wrestle to elevate both workforce to the WorldTour.