So Tinkoff and IAM are ending and presumably handing licences back, plus there was agreement to drop from 18 to 17 teams next season. If Lampre keep hold of their licence, does that mean One Pro, Bora and Bahrain are all competing for one vacant licence? Is it an auction or purely a commissioners' decision? If it's at all subjective, UCI's lawyers better be on danger money
Given they signed virtually all their riders from the 3rd Division I feel ONE have made a good start. It's a big step up. They have some decent results, albeit predominantly in races with few or no World Tour or top Pro Conti teams. Nevertheless, they remain at the weaker end of the Pro Conti continuum. To go World Tour in 2017 they would need an almost totally new squad, including some world class riders. I doubt news of the movement of 20+ riders to the same team would not have crept out, so I do not see it happening.
As to the reduction to 17 World Tour teams for 2017 it depends whether the UCI introduced this as a genuine strategic move for the future or to save embarrassment when they heard they may be short of teams. If the latter, they could just run with 18 teams. If they insist on 17 teams and stick with the muted relegation system, then Dimension Data will need to justify their place against Bora and Bahrain, as they are bottom of the ranking and by some distance. Their problem is they are relying on 4 guys Cav., EBH, Cummings and Siutsou to pick up the vast majority of their WT wins/points. They need to sign more points scorers or guys who can offer more support to those who can score points. I see some significant changes at DD with new signings and a number of current riders not being retained, because even if they escape in 2017 they will face the same issue in 2018.