UAE Team Emirates set record pace early - 'This is only the beginning'

The UAE Tour provided the clearest snapshot of how quickly the team can lock into winning mode. Isaac del Toro arrived for his season opener without an altitude camp or a big training camp behind him, but rode through the week with authority, taking two stages and the overall. For the sponsor, it was another home celebration after Pogačar’s wins in 2021, 2022 and 2025, and it marked a fourth overall victory in just eight editions of the race.

Del Toro’s haul also nudged the season total forward, with a small administrative wrinkle helping it along. His double Mexican title at the end of 2025 is counted in the 2026 ledger, so UAE’s tally now reads 15 before the calendar turns to March. With the caveat that Marc Soler’s overall victory at the Vuelta a Murcia was later stripped after the UCI ruled that, with stage two cancelled, the two-day race effectively became a one-day event.

Either way, the underlying point remains the same: they have started fast, and they have done it in several different ways.

UAE were already operating on a different scale in 2025. They closed the year on 95 wins, five short of a century but comfortably beyond the previous benchmark of 85 victories set by Columbia HTC in 2009.

By the end of February in that record breaking season, they had 12 wins on the board. This time they are already three ahead of that mark, with further opportunities still to come this month at Omloop Nieuwsblad and the Faun Ardèche Classic.

Joxean 'Matxin' Fernandez, the team’s sporting manager, has heard the century question often enough to answer it without feeding it. “100 is just a number,” he said to Sporza. “For me it’s important to win more than last year. And ideally with one more rider as well.”

The second line is the one that hints at how UAE see themselves. Last season’s 95 wins were spread across 20 different riders, a statistic that said as much about internal permission as it did about depth. Matxin wants that breadth to grow again. 

“We want to give everyone their chances. We have strong leaders, but last year we won with 20 different riders. Why shouldn’t we go for 21 this year?”

So far, the team are right on track. And that is without their figurehead, Tadej Pogačar, having started his season. “This is only the beginning,” Matxin warned.