AG2R CITROEN: 3/10
Despite stringing together a series of high finishes in the early season stage races, last year’s breakout star Ben O’Connor failed to mount a Grand Tour GC bid to match his fourth-place from last year’s Tour de France.
Instead, a Bob Jungels stage win at that race was their season highlight, while what little success they had elsewhere in the World Tour often came from Benoît Cosnfroy, who won GP de Québec and podiumed at Amstel Gold and Brabantse Pijl.
ASTANA QAZAQSTAN: 1/10
With fewer wins than any other World Tour team, and only two of those managed outside of Asia, Astana’s miserable downward trajectory of recent years continues.
Fourth overall at the Vuelta and Giro Miguel Ángel López and Vincenzo Nibali respectively were their only real performances of note, and with the latter retiring, they can only hope newly-crowned under-23 world champion Yevgeniy Fedorov helps spark life into this struggling team.
BAHRAIN-VICTORIOUS: 7/10
(Image credit: Getty)
At the start of the season, Bahrain-Victorious picked up where they left off from 2021, winning another monument though Matej Mohoric at Milan-San Remo, picking up another Grand Tour podium finish with Mikel Landa at the Giro, and many other big wins including Dylan Teuns at Flèche Wallonne.
Things did tail off during the second half of the year results wise but Fred Wright’s continued grit and determination in the face of a string of near misses served to endear the team to the fans and make him one of the squads best best performers.
BIKEEXCHANGE-JAYCO: 7/10
Despite having the threat of World Tour relegation hanging over them for much of the season until Michael Matthews landed them a haul of points with bronze at the World Championships, BikeExchange-Jayco enjoyed their most prolific season since 2019.
New signing Dylan Groenewegen proved to be a success in the sprints and Simon Yates was his usual self, and each contributed to the team winning stages in all three Grand Tours, although illness prevented Yates from doing well on GC in any of them.
BORA-HANSGROHE: 9/10
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jai Hindley’s overall victory at the Giro d’Italia (the team’s first ever Grand Tour) was perhaps the greatest ever achievement for the German squad, and a landmark moment confirming that they are now one of the top stage race forces.
They also again managed to exceed 30 wins despite the departure of long-standing talisman Peter Sagan, largely thanks to the…