It's often a tough task to tell at a glance which teams are doing well at the Tour de France, there are 22 of them going around France, each with their own objectives and strengths.
To keep an eye on how each team is progressing, Cycling Central is running the Zwift Power Rankings during this Tour de France. It's a quick guide from stage to stage of which teams are excelling and which are unlucky or faring poorly.
1. Jumbo-Visma
A boil-over to start the 2019 Tour! Mike Teunissen has been in tremendous form in lower level races and showed that he's not just a leadout/classics man, taking a superb win against the cream of the current crop of sprinters.
A late crash for Dylan Groenewegen made it look like Jumbo-Visma's work on the front of the peloton all day would be for naught. While the Dutch fast man rued his fate on the tarmac, Jumbo-Visma regrouped to drop Teunissen off in the last 500 metres, putting him on Sonny Colbrelli's wheel.
It proved to be a perfect leadout for Teunissen as Colbrelli went early, but he still needed to show plenty of power to come round the outside to beat Sagan.
Best Results: 1st- Stage 1, Yellow Jersey 1 stage.
2. BORA-hansgrohe
Their big star nearly got their race off to a perfect start, but instead Peter Sagan was left screaming in frustration as he entered the team bus.
This is the next best thing to a win for Sagan though, the rest of the day went perfectly as he collected maximum points at the intermediate sprint and the winner on the day isn't one of his main rivals for the green jersey. He'll wear the green jersey tomorrow on loan from the race leader, he has 50 points already to his tally and a nice little lead over everyone except Teunissen.
Best Results: 2nd- Stage 1
3. Lotto Soudal
A mixed stage for the Belgian squad. They'll be very happy with Caleb Ewan's apparent level of form, but less so with his leadout that saw him languishing at the rear of the main group of sprinters coming into the final kilometre.
Luckily, Ewan was able to find a way up on Viviani's wheel and then cut the Italian off when Sagan made his move. Unfortunately there was no space for Ewan from there and ended up posting an impressive third-placed finish.
Best Results: 3rd- Stage 1
4. CCC
An enterprising move from Greg van Avermaet secured the first mountain jersey for CCC and gave the home fans something to cheer about in the early kilometres of the stage.
It's a bit of a break with tradition as the early mountains jersey is normally one for the smaller teams, not a rider of the calibre of van Avermaet.
Best Results: Mountains Jersey 1 stage
5. Deceuninck-Quickstep
They were on the front all day along with Lotto Soudal and Jumbo-Visma, and they'll be disappointed that the final sprint wasn't run to Viviani's liking. It's hard to diagnose exactly what went wrong, but Viviani got disconnected from his train and was a mile back when the race came into the final kilometre.
The upside is that Viviani looked incredibly strong and was a few centimetres off making it into a gap that Ewan just managed to jump into first. He balked after a near collision going for that spot and had no momentum, finishing ninth. His team-mates also looked to be in very good form, they'll dial it in and grab a sprint win soon.
6. Dimension Data
Giacomo Nizzolo showed that it's probably for the best that Mark Cavendish was left at home, showing impressive power in the dash to the line.
At one stage, he was on Teunissen's wheel and will be ruing the fact that he tried to freestyle a way through rather than trying to come round the eventual winner.
Best Results: 4th- Stage 1
7. Cofidis
Cofidis were the chief animators of the race, launching Natnael Berhane in the early break then again attacking Stephane Rossetto once the initial move was brought back. Attacking riding is a plus for the Power Rankings, certainly no team can be the best everyday, but you can ride with panache and effort everyday.
Christophe Laporte and Julien Simon tried their hardest in the finale, but they don't have the quality of the bigger names.
8. Team Sunweb
Michael Matthews was left to his own devices and did a very good job in positioning, he was just left hanging on the front after a smart pull-off from Deceuninck-Quickstep's Max Richeze.
Did the best he could from there, leading out from three hundred metres on the uphill sprint, and sixth is a valiant effort given the circumstances. Matthews clearly has some good legs at the moment, though he be disappointed to have conceded ground to Sagan in the green jersey battle.
9. Bahrain Merida
Sonny Colbrelli got himself stuck sprinting by himself on the outside of the corner when perhaps he may have been better off following wheels and waiting for his chance.
As it was, he gave Teunissen the leadout for the win, but looked pretty strong in the process. He'll find it tough to take a win this year, he's not really a top sprinter, and Sagan and Matthews have his number on the hillier stages.
10. Wanty Groupe Gobert
A day in the breakaway for Xandro Meurisse, who even showed Greg van Avermaet a clean pair of cleats at one stage to crest the second KOM of the day in first position.
Andrea Pasqualon is their sprinter, but don't expect too much from him other than sneaking the occasional top-ten.
11. Mitchelton-Scott
From here on we'll go more or less by top finishing position until we get down to the bottom teams, namely teams that had something go significantly wrong.
12. AG2R-La Mondiale
13. Trek Segafredo
14. EF Education First
15. UAE Team Emirates
Jasper Philipsen was on leadout duty for Alexander Kristoff and seemed to cop a 'don't argue' elbow from Matthews with 800 metres that he did well to save from becoming a nasty crash. Kristoff was on his wheel and got swept well back as Philipsen lost momentum.
16. Katusha-Alpecin
17. Team Ineos
18. Movistar
19. Groupama-FDJ
20. Total Direct Energie
21. Astana
Jakob Fuglsang came down very hard in a crash mid-race and while he was able to rejoin the race without losing any time, he appeared to come down on his head (check out the below video at about the 20-second mark).
The team reported that Fuglsang has no fractures and will race the team time trial tomorrow, but the pre-race contender looks to be a day-to-day proposition at the moment.
22. Team Arkea-Samsic
Awful start for the French team. Andre Greipel didn't sound confident at all before the race and you can see why. He has very little leadout and doesn't appear the same 'Gorilla' of yesteryear. A 19th place for him.
They didn't even populate the breakaway, a must for the smaller teams that are lighter on results.
