Day after day, there is less and less waiting for the eagerly anticipated Catalan Grand Depart of the Tour de France 2026, a race that for the teams taking part from Saturday, July 4th to Sunday, July 26th will represent a unique opportunity not only in terms of prestige and visibility but also in terms of points to be earned to improve their position in the ever-current UCI team ranking.

The Grande Boucle, from this point of view, is the race on the calendar that offers the most substantial rewards (210 points for each stage victory and the conquest of the points and polka dot jerseys, 1,300 points for 1st place in the general classification in Paris, 25 points for each day in the leader's jersey), a haul that, for various reasons, many teams aspire to share in order to approach or at least direct in the right way the pursuit of their stated objectives, whether annual or three-year, relating to the ranking.

Before, therefore, the great yellow ball of July begins, let's see what the situation is in the team standings and who might be more interested than others in exploiting the Tour's platform to acquire as many points as possible.

UAE TEAM EMIRATES-XRG ALWAYS AT THE TOP

Just days before the start in Barcelona, at the top of the standings we find the same teams that occupied the top ten positions at the end of the first major stage race of the season, namely the Giro d'Italia. Leading the way, solidly in 1st place with 17,598.96 points, is UAE Team Emirates-XRG which, with a wide margin, leads Red Bull BORA hansgrohe (which moved in June from 3rd to 2nd place with 14,768.9 points), Visma Lease a Bike (13,900.27), Decathlon CMA CGM Team (11,723.95) and Lidl-Trek which, rising from 7th to 5th place with 9,725.4 total points, is the team that has gained the most positions (2) in the provisional top ten in the last month.

Behind the American-based team, both dropping one position, we find XDS Astana (6th with 8,919.71 points) and Bahrain Victorious (7th with 8,884.74) and then stable in eighth, ninth and tenth place Netcompany INEOS (8,082.68), Soudal Quick-Step (7,616) and Alpecin-Premier Tech (7,368) which, fielding both Philipsen and van der Poel at the Tour, is not excluded from potentially making a good leap in the standings at the end of the three weeks of racing in France.

COFIDIS, PINARELLO AND TUDOR FOR THE BREAKAWAY

Just outside the top fifteen positions in the ranking, the trio of ProTeam formations consisting of Pinarello-Q36.5 (which moved in June from 14th to 16th place with 5,746 points), Cofidis (17th with 5,627.74) and Tudor (18th with 5,490.56) will be able to take advantage of participation in the Tour de France to consolidate their positioning and extend their lead over the remaining second-tier teams, thus moving closer to obtaining automatic invitations to all World Tour races for the next season.

Without the potential boost offered by the Grande Boucle, it will be difficult for Unibet Rose Rockets of Bas Tietema (the first pursuer of the three mentioned above in 21st place with 4,924 points) to, through an alternative calendar, keep pace and threaten their placements, while there is a slightly better chance that the same French-licensed team could be approached by TotalEnergies (22nd with 3,506.56 points) and Caja Rural-Seguros RGA (23rd with 3,329.01) which will be present at the Tour and will have the opportunity to close the gap.

THE RACE FOR THE TOP 30 AND THE ITALIAN TEAMS

Among the participants in the 2026 Tour de France, the team with the lowest ranking that will line up at the start in Barcelona will be Picnic PostNL. The Dutch formation, with only one victory achieved so far this season, occupies a very delicate position (28th with 1,732 points) given that, in the portion of the standings where it currently sits, there are a series of teams fighting to finish in the top 30 and thus be eligible for invitations to the Grand Tours of 2027.

Among these, above all, are MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort (which managed in June to climb well 4 positions, moving from 32nd to 29th place with 1,606 points), Euskaltel-Euskadi (dropped from 28th to 30th place with 1,521.97 points) and Bardiani CSF 7 Saber: the team of the Reverberi brothers, despite participation in the Giro, continues to navigate in far from calm waters considering that, currently, it is 31st with 1,461.01 points, but with three and a half months of season still to be disputed has time on its side to straighten out the situation.

The gap from the thirtieth position, in fact, is not insurmountable, but in addition to thinking about who precedes them, the Italian team would do well to also look over its shoulder because with the Asian calendar (and Chinese in particular) ready to enter the fray, Roojai Insurance Winspace (33rd with 1,340.33 points) and Li Ning Star (32nd with 1,357.33 points and best Continental team of the year both in terms of number of victories and ranking placement) could also risk ending up competing with them for entry into the top thirty, giving them an unpleasant setback.

Much more comfortable, on the other hand, are the other two Italian representatives, Solution Tech NIPPO Rali (ninth team in the world by number of wins this year and currently 25th in the standings with 2,730.35 points) and Polti VisitMalta (26th with 2,405.58 points), which respectively with 1,209 and 883 points ahead of the thirtieth position can for now approach the second part of the season with peace of mind.