Not nearly as victorious as it sounds: Bahrain Victorious will slowly but surely need to start worrying

It feels like a while ago, but the new road season is slowly but surely approaching. At IDL Pro Cycling, we take the time to take a look at the year of all the teams. This time we take a look at Bahrain Victorious, which despite its name had very little to celebrate this year. That is worrying to say the least.

At Bahrain Victorious they had to wait a very long time for it, but it was Lenny Martinez who, in the last week of the road season, ensured that the Bahrain formation's tally in one-day races would not end on zero, with a win in the Japan Cup Road Race. For other mentionable results in one day races, we have to dig quite deep.

Indeed, the notable results in one day races can be counted on one hand. Martinez finished fourth in the Flèche Wallonne, Pello Bilbao surprised somewhat with a fifth place in Strade Bianche and Matej Mohoric finished fifth in the GP de Québec in one of his few good days on the bike this year.

Phil Bauhaus also sprinted to a fourth place in the chaotic final of Brugge-De Panne, but that's where Bahrain Victorious' one-day results come to an end. The name may suggest otherwise, but the Bahrain team has not been that victorious this year.

The successes the team did have came in stage races. Early in the year Santiago Buitrago won the general classification of the Tour of Valencia, alongside two stage wins. In the same spring Martinez secured the team's first WorldTour victory of 2025 with a stage victory in Paris-Nice.

It was the Frenchman who would end up winning most often at Bahrain Victorious, as he also managed to win a stage in the Tour de Romandie and in an ironclad Dauphiné. Good-old Damiano Caruso won another stage in the Tour of Burgos, but the victories stopped there.

In Grand Tours, the team experienced unexpected success, as it suddenly took possession of the red jersey in the Vuelta for a few days thanks to Torstein Træen. The Norwegian eventually finished ninth in Madrid. Caruso finished handsomely fifth in "his" Giro after leader Antonio Tiberi crashed out, while the Tour was a much lesser success.

In other major stage races, such as the UAE Tour, Tour of Poland, Tour of Romandie and Tirreno-Adriatico, the team did finish on the final podium. A really big classification was not won, and so the team ends up with a total of only eight wins. The downward trend, from 30 (2021), to 21 (2022), to 19 (2023), to 13 victories last year, thus continues.

Sufficient, or not? At the end of the day, there are very few wins for Bahrain Victorious, although the team may not have many real finishers in its roster either, as evidenced by the fact that only three different riders won this year. All in all, our (former) editors rate it with a 5.1.

The future of some riders is still unclear, as only Nicolò Buratti (MBH Bank CSB Ballan) and Fred Wright (Pinarello-Q36.5) have been announced by other teams. Where riders such as Mohoric, Træen, Andrea Pasqualon, Jack Haig, Rainer Kepplinger and Robert Stannard will go is not yet known.

At the entrance it is (fortunately for the team) a little busier. For example, the Bahrain formation announced earlier that it is transferring Alessandro Borgo and top talent Jakob Ormzel from the development squad. The latter won this year's Giro Next Gen at the age of nineteen and has already made his debut for the main squad, where he has already shown great things.

The other incoming transfers are a bit more varied. For example, with Alec Segaert (Lotto) the team managed to land a rider with a big engine, while with Pau Miquel, who signed from Equipo Kern Pharma, the team strung together a sprinter who has already racked up a few decent results. Finally, Attila Valter signed from Visma | Lease a Bike.

Whether this means attracting true finishers, remains to be seen. Valter won seven times in his career, but that included five national titles. Segaert only won twice so far, Miquel never. Thus, the Bahrain team seems to be relying mainly on finding the form of the riders it already has.

(Preliminary) incoming transfers: Alessandro Borgo, Jakob Ormzel (both own development team), Pau Miquel (Equipo Kern Pharma) and Alec Segaert (Lotto)

(Preliminary) outgoing transfers: Nicolò Buratti (MBH Bank CSB Ballan) and Fred Wright (Pinarello-Q36.5)

Ormzel is one of the greatest talents in the current world of cycling, so it will be interesting to see what the young Slovenian can do in his first real year at the highest level. He has already shown he can keep up with a large part of the professional peloton uphill, so that is promising!

After a fine 2024, Alberto Bruttomesso could not really continue his growth this year, so it will be the hope for him that he can strike once on a fast finish in 2026. Also keep an eye on Portuguese Afonso Eulálio, he who already showed great things in the Giro, earlier this year.

Continuing the good form: that seems to be what the 2026 cycling year will be all about for Martinez. Can the young Frenchman finally win an important stage race? For Tiberi, the same objective seems to be at hand. For Buitrago, the hope will be to finally catch a really big fish again, as he already did in 2022 and 2023, when he won a stage in the Tour of Italy.