Update 9: Battles on many fronts
Brandon McNulty, Valentin Madouas, Marc Hirschi and Cees Bol are the main scorers in this update. McNulty showed his talent climbing with the best in California, Madouas scored a top-10 finish in 4 Jours de Dunkerque (which is actually a 6-day race). Hirschi impressed in Tour de l'Ain with a 4th place, and Bol got 2nd behind Bouhanni in GP Marcel Kint.
Those with a combination of these names are in luck: they've had a good week. Interestingly, no one appears to have more than 2 of them (unless I've missed someone). Of the four, McNulty is most popular, appearing on 15 teams, with Madouas, Hirschi and Bol on 7, 7 and 6 teams respectively.
LosBrolin is this update's highest scorer, but it was a close match. He scored with McNulty and Madouas, as well as with Conci, Fabbro and Halvorsen. TheArt is the 2nd highest scorer, only 3 points behind LosBrolin. He has Madouas and Bol and added points from Powless and rare pick Van Schip (3 picks). Third highest scorer is torcia_86 with McNulty, Madouas, Van Schip and Halvorsen scoring points.
LosBrolin managed to climb 8 spots thanks to his great score, and he now sits in 6th position overall. 2nd highest scorer is the_asian, who only finished 1 point away from the top-3 in the highest scorers ranking this update. He combines points from McNulty, Hirschi, Halvorsen and rare picks Aurélien Paret-Peintre and William Barta. 3rd highest scorer torcia_86 is also the 3rd highest mover in this update.
Overall, we see that rote_lanterne pushes Hakkie2 from the top spot, but the difference is only slight: 5 points. TheArt remains 3rd, LosBrolin and the_asian leap into the top-10. Of course, this also means some players fall out of the top-10 - skidmark drops from 10th to 12th, and search tumbles 8 positions to 16th.
Highest scorers
1 LosBrolin 206
2 TheArt 203
3 torcia_86 192
4 the_asian 191
5 MADRAZO 166
6 Josedin 165
7 rote_lanterne 162
8 Squire 159
9 Roubaix 132
10 Jon Ezeitza 131
Highest movers
1 LosBrolin 8
2 the_asian 6
3 torcia_86 5
4 Jon Ezeitza 3
5 Josedin 2
Overall Ranking
1 +1 rote_lanterne 1559
2 -1 Hakkie2 1554
3 = TheArt 1431
4 +1 MADRAZO 1353
5 +2 Josedin 1337
6 +8 LosBrolin 1314
7 +6 the_asian 1302
8 -4 Trudgin 1297
9 -3 fauniera 1283
10 -1 comodoro 1260
Spreadsheet at Mediafire
Also, it may be interesting to look at the collective wisdom teams I put together at the start of the season:
Team 1 was the most popular team possible, but 70 points under budget: (Rider - Points 2017 - Points 2018)
HALVORSEN Kristoffer 151 116
SIVAKOV Pavel 142 72
JAKOBSEN Fabio 118 339
PHILIPSEN Jasper 107 134
RIABUSHENKO Aliaksandr 96 54
PADUN Mark 73 88
WELTEN Bram 56 96
MCNULTY Brandon 35 187
CIMA Imerio 35 0
CARBONI Giovanni 28 10
COSTA Adrien 27 0
HODEG CHAGUI Alvaro Jose 26 205
DAVIES Scott 26 44
BARCELO ARAGON Fernando 14 21
PIDCOCK Thomas 0 2
Team 2 was the 2nd most popular option, with Yssaad instead of Barcelo, coming in at exactly 1000 points:
HALVORSEN Kristoffer 151 116
SIVAKOV Pavel 142 72
JAKOBSEN Fabio 118 339
PHILIPSEN Jasper 107 134
RIABUSHENKO Aliaksandr 96 54
YSSAAD Yannis 80 6
PADUN Mark 73 88
WELTEN Bram 56 96
MCNULTY Brandon 35 187
CIMA Imerio 35 0
CARBONI Giovanni 28 10
COSTA Adrien 27 0
HODEG CHAGUI Alvaro Jose 26 205
DAVIES Scott 26 44
PIDCOCK Thomas 0 2
Team 3 was tied with team 2 as the 2nd most popular option, with Barcelo instead of Carboni, for a total of 986 points:
HALVORSEN Kristoffer 151 116
SIVAKOV Pavel 142 72
JAKOBSEN Fabio 118 339
PHILIPSEN Jasper 107 134
RIABUSHENKO Aliaksandr 96 54
YSSAAD Yannis 80 6
PADUN Mark 73 88
WELTEN Bram 56 96
MCNULTY Brandon 35 187
CIMA Imerio 35 0
COSTA Adrien 27 0
HODEG CHAGUI Alvaro Jose 26 205
DAVIES Scott 26 44
BARCELO ARAGON Fernando 14 21
PIDCOCK Thomas 0 2
Obviously, these teams are very close together in their 2018 score, as there is a lot of overlap, and neither Barcelo, nor Carboni, nor Yssaad is having a stellar season... But... while all 3 teams would be 4th overall if they were included, the most popular team, team 1, does marginally better than the other 2