Another Grand Tour, the second of the season, has been archived but given that this is the Tour de France, and in view of the UCI ranking for the race on the calendar that awarded more points than any other, it is more than necessary to analyze which teams best exploited their presence in the most important race in the world to improve their position in the 2026 team rankings.

A litmus test of how the various teams competing in the Grande Boucle performed over the last three weeks, let us therefore see how the situation has changed in the annual standings reserved for teams, verifying which of them were the most prolific on the roads of France and Catalonia.

PROMOTED AND FAILED AT THE GRANDE BOUCLE

As has happened repeatedly in recent seasons, the team that accumulated the most points at the Tour was UAE Team Emirates-XRG which, thanks to six stage victories and the yellow jerseys worn by Tadej Pogacar (who alone, with his 8,557 points in the individual UCI ranking, would curiously have already accumulated more points than half of the teams with WorldTour licenses, potentially placing himself at 9th in the team standings), concluded their adventure across the Alps with an impressive 5,675 points.

Behind the Emirati team, trailing by over 2,500 points, was Lidl-Trek with Mads Pedersen (green jersey and stage winner), Juan Ayuso and Matias Skjelmose (seventh and sixth respectively in the general classification) who, with 3,115 points, took second place in this special standings ahead of Red Bull BORA hansgrohe with Remco Evenepoel (third with 2,990 points) and, already off the virtual podium, Decathlon CMA CGM with Paul Seixas (fourth with 2,650 points) and Team Visma Lease a Bike (fifth with 1,700 points and certainly penalized by the premature withdrawal of Jonas Vingegaard).

Scrolling further down the standings, it stands out how only 10 of the 23 teams present managed to pocket 1,000 or more points and how none of the five ProTeam squads admitted directly or by invitation to the event (the best in this regard was Pinarello Q36.5, 14th with 760 points) managed to approach the top ten closed by Soudal Quick-Step with 1,100 points.

THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN THE STANDINGS

Thanks to the points earned in France, the only significant leap forward in the rankings registered after the Tour de France was the one made by EF Education Easypost of Jonathan Vaughters. Primarily through the 1,308.12 points signed by polka dot jersey wearer Richard Carapaz, the American representative closed the Grande Boucle with 1,675 total points (just behind Visma Lease a Bike) climbing from 20th to 14th position in the UCI standings.

Apart from this latter, the differences between the pre-Tour and post-Tour classifications were minimal: Alpecin-Premier Tech and Pinarello Q36.5 were the only two teams to gain a position, Soudal Quick-Step, Tudor and Groupama-FDJ United the only ones to lose one, while Movistar, Lotto Intermarchè and Picnic PostNL were those that instead ended up dropping two places.

In this regard, it should be noted the increasingly precarious positioning of Iwan Spekenbrink's team which, after being the worst team for UCI points (67) at the Giro d'Italia, concluded as the last-place team at the Tour as well (just 95 points accumulated in three weeks of racing) sliding into 30th position in the annual rankings.

OTHER RACES AND THE PROTEAMS

Simultaneously with the Tour de France, however, other races were also held (few, to be honest) that were particularly targeted by teams that could not participate in the Grande Boucle.

We are talking about one .Pro level race (the Tour of Magnificent Qinghai), three .1 level races (Sibiu Tour, Tour of Austria, Clasica de Oridizia and Clasica Castilla y Leon) and six .2 level races: Giro del Medio Brenta, Visegrad 4 Kerekparverseny and Visegrad 4 Bicycle Race-GP Slovakia (races that proved particularly positive for MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort), Andrzeja Trochanowskiego, Dookoła Mazowsza and Puchar MON (particularly targeted by Euskatel-Euskadi).

Well, who maximized these events was Bardiani CSF 7 Saber which, with 258 points earned between China and Italy, gained three positions in the standings placing itself in 28th position and forcefully re-entering the top 30 which, it should be remembered, is worth eligibility for invitations to the Grand Tours next year. This possibility, on the other hand, could not currently be aspired to by Euskaltel-Euskadi which, despite attempting to scrape together points by organizing a very international alternative calendar, dropped to 31st position, 185 points behind Picnic, which, by virtue of its current placement, could prove decisive in determining the best 30 of 2026 at the end of the season.

The positions of the other two Italian teams (Solution Tech NIPPO Rali and Polti VisitMalta) remained stable which, although swapping places, after the Tour de France still occupy the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth positions in the annual standings.