‘It’s survival’ – More than podiums at stake as battle for top 30 spots, WorldTour positions and ProTeam priority played out at Le Tour de Langkawi

Solution Tech Vini Fantini’s sports director, Filippo Fuochi, however, echoed Hernandez’s sentiment, with the situation critical, particularly given the squad is sitting just outside the top 30.

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“I don’t want to think about it,” said Fuochi when asked what would happen if the team didn’t finish inside the top 30. “But I think the team will go away, because I think we have a good sponsor, but it’s too important that we are in the first 30, because I don’t know how much time the sponsor can support us if we aren’t.

“We will try every day, every race till the 19 of October,” said Fuochi in Malaysia.

While there are some more races to come, the end is certainly drawing near, and the tally at the Tour de Langkawi fell in Polti-Visit Malta’s favour.

“At the moment, the race was good,” Hernandez told Cyclingnews at the start of stage 8. “I’m really happy with the team, with the commitment, with the attitude of each one. And yeah, of course we, at the moment, have got even more points than the other Italian ProTeams, so I’m really happy with this,” he said with a laugh.

Later that day they walked away with the to spot in the teams classification, four riders in the top 15 overall – Fernando Tercero in sixth, Davide Bais in 9th, Germán Darío Gómez in 13th and Alex Martín just behind in 14th – and Manuel Peñalver finishing in the stage points on five of the eight days with a second, third, two fourth places and also a fifth.

Polti-VisitMalta’s 2025 Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi squad and sports director Jesus Hernandez celebrate claiming the teams classification (Image credit: Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi)

Consolidating that position at the head of the Italian ProTeams at the race where they accumulated 183 points and shifted up to 27th spot when that was combined with some other strong results in Europe, was important. This was not only because it put them more solidly within the top 30, leaving them eligible for a wildcard, but also, Hernandez pointed out earlier, because being the top one of the Italian teams also made it more likely they wouldn’t only be eligible but also actually get it.

While the Italian team battle may have been firing, it wasn’t the only top 30 fight going on, with Spanish teams Burgos Burpellet BH and Equipo Kern Pharma sitting just inside the top 30 along with French team Unibet Tietema Rockets who were clear that the reason for the trip to Malaysia was to gather UCI points, and while they walked away with 121 plus a stage win, said they were hoping for more in a social media post.

As we work our way up the rankings, what is at stake is a position as one of the top three ProTeams on the yearly ranking that receive automatic wildcard invitation to WorldTour races, and for those teams in the top 18 over the three-year cycle, it is a WorldTour spot.

Currently, UNO-X Mobility is just outside the top 18 on the three-year cycle, so chasing points was certainly one of the many reasons for heading to Langkawi, with the squad having raced the 2.1-ranked CRO Race in recent years instead, but the higher ranking in Malaysia meant more points were available. There is no doubt the team will get a wildcard invitation to the WorldTour races as one of the top ProTeams – currently ranked 12th on the yearly tally, but even if the team from Norway finishes 19th on the three-year cycle taken into consideration for relegation and promotion, given the mooted merger of Intermarché-Wanty and Lotto, it is very likely to secure a WorldTour spot. Still, it was taking a pragmatic approach.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t come down to this last race. I mean, it’s been going on for three years,” sports director Leonard Snoeks told Cyclingnews. “So if we don’t make it, we don’t make it. If we make it, that’s a really nice bonus for us.”

The squad was the top points earner at the race, sweeping up 254 through a combination of their GC efforts, with second-place Anders Halland Johannessen and a heavy dose of stage podiums from their sprinters.

One of the WorldTour teams at the race, which at one stage had looked vulnerable of heading the other way and falling out of the WorldTour instead of into it, is XDS-Astana. However, they have transformed their chances in 2025 with a calculated approach to gathering points, which in 2025 has propelled them up to fourth place for the year and their three-year ranking to 15th.

“The priority, of course, with the team, was points this year,” explained the winner of the final stage, Astana’s Aaron Gate. “And I think it’s a good thing. This is the team showing that we belong in the WorldTour, and I think for a starter to currently be fourth in the world tour team rankings this year shows that we had a plan, we stuck to it, and I think it’s a real credit to everyone involved to make that happen.”

The performance in the race that worked its way from the very north to south of Peninsular Malaysia after starting on Langkawi, also certainly didn’t hurt with four stage victories – three from Matteo Malucelli, one from Gate, plus a fourth on the GC for Nicolas Vinokurov and 19th for Gate, which left them walking away from the eight-day tour with 225 points.

Team sports director Mark Renshaw told Cyclingnews early in the race that the target at the start of the season was to score points to keep the team in the WorldTour, and even though it has been a good season, that had remained the objective in Langkawi.

“Well, mathematically our IT guy hasn’t said that it’s fixed and until he says that it’s mathematically done, then we keep the target of scoring points, even though it does look good, but we keep setting new targets, and the target now is to pass Jayco,” he said early in the race, and that target has now been achieved with the help of Langkawi.

The field of Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi 2025 on stage 5 (Image credit: Petronas Le Tour de Langkawi)