Italian ProTeam out of the battle for 2025 Giro d'Italia wildcards due to lack of UCI points

Team Corratec - Vini Fantini is the first victim of UCI's updated protocol on which teams can apply for Grand Tour wild cards. In order to even make it into the mix for 2025, the ProTeams must've finished at worst 40th in the UCI ranking, while next year, the criteria get even stricter with top-30 as a cut-off.

Team Corratec - Vini Fantini, which has been fighting to prove themselves as a worthy ProTeam ever since their promotion to the level in 2023, was unable to rack up enough points this year, losing to some of the continental teams including Development teams of Lidl-Trek (31), Israel - Premier Tech (36) or Alpecin-Deceuninck (40). It's the latter Belgian formation they lacked 33 points to pass after their last race. Therefore Corratec won't be making their second appearance at Giro any time soon.

For the Italian PRT team, this is a complication as the sponsors, naturally, love to see their team at the front of races. The bigger the better. With limited exposure, the management had tough time even putting together the budget for 2025, but luckily the fire was put out for now, it seems.

Following what emerged with the conclusion of the season, SpazioCiclismo contacted the team again and were told that "the team manager is working to set up the team and to find the necessary funds for next year". For this reason, "being in the top 40 is not a priority" for a team that currently has to face a major change, both in terms of personnel and sponsorships, given that the current main sponsor, the German bike manufacturer Corratec, will no longer be the team's first name.

Negotiations are therefore underway with old and new partners to complete the budget for next season. A situation that currently makes it "premature to talk about everything else". As can be seen from the presence of the team in the list released in recent days by the UCI, the team has nevertheless deposited its first contracts, the bank guarantee and the first names of the sponsors and has "all the papers in order" to continue its adventure with a professional license. Now the goal is to further increase the budget to be able to plan a successful 2025 that can allow it to enter the top 30 teams at the end of the season and be able to apply for the WildCard in 2026.