The 2011 season for the cycling team began in January at the Tour Down Under and ended in October at the Tour of Hainan. As a UCI ProTeam, they were automatically invited and obligated to send a squad to every event in the UCI World Tour. In a change from the 2010 season, the team's manager was Giuseppe Martinelli, replacing Yvon Sanquer. There was also a major change in ridership, as three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador departed for , while his doping case remains unresolved. Three Spanish domestiques followed Contador to , while two climbing talents who spent the previous season with , Roman Kreuziger and Robert Kišerlovski, were notable additions to the team for 2011.
Alexander Vinokourov was the team's leader alongside Kreuziger. Vinokourov stated before the season that 2011 would likely be his last year as a professional rider. He sustained a serious crash at the Tour de France. He broke his right femur and retired from the sport for a time, but he eventually went back on this decision and his decision from before the season, opting instead to return for the 2012 season.
True to their longtime identity as a stage racing team, all of Astana's 2011 victories came in stage races. They had a much lesser presence at the Grand Tours than they did when Contador rode for them, achieving just one stage win and sixth overall as their best placing, both from the Giro d'Italia. They also took stage wins at seven other races.
2011 roster Ages as of January 1, 2011.
Riders who joined the team for the 2011 season Rider2010 teamSimon ClarkeRémy Di GregorioTanel Kangertex-pro (, 2009)Fredrik KessiakoffRobert KišerlovskiRoman KreuzigerMirco LorenzettoFrancesco MasciarelliEvgeni PetrovTomas Vaitkus
Riders who left the team during or after the 2010 season Rider2011 teamAlberto ContadorScott DavisRetiredValeriy DmitriyevNoneDavid de la FuenteJesús HernándezDaniel NavarroBenjamín NovalÓscar PereiroRetiredBolat RaimbekovNoneMirko Selvaggi
One-day races
Spring classics The squad was not competitive at the first three monument races in the spring season, coming just 66th in Milan–San Remo, 35th at the Tour of Flanders, and 18th at Paris–Roubaix. Kišerlovski and Clarke took seventh places at two early-season classics, respectively the Classica Sarda and the Giro del Friuli, the latter a race run in such difficult conditions that only 25 riders finished.
The team's two leaders Vinokourov and Kreuziger rode strongly at the Ardennes classics. Vinokourov took fourth in La Flèche Wallonne, six seconds back of winner Philippe Gilbert. Kreuziger was also fourth, at the fourth monument Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and also back of Gilbert as race winner. The team also sent squads to the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen – Harelbeke, Gent–Wevelgem, and the Amstel Gold Race, but finished distantly in each, 16th, 66th, and 17th respectively.
Fall races Gasparotto turned in a fourth place ride at Tre Valli Varesine, which matched the team's best single-day result of the season, along with the performances of Kreuziger and Vinokourov from earlier in the season. Clarke provided two of the team's highest finishes in the later-season single day races, coming fifth at the Coppa Ugo Agostoni and seventh at Vattenfall Cyclassics. Clarke also turned in a good ride at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, finishing tenth.
The team also sent squads to the Clásica de San Sebastián, the GP Ouest-France, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, the Coppa Sabatini, the Giro dell'Emilia, the GP Bruno Beghelli, the Giro di Lombardia, the Chrono des Nations, and the Japan Cup, but finished no higher than 17th in any of these races.
Stage races
Di Gregorio took the team's first win of the season, at Paris–Nice, winning a windy, rainy stage 7 into Sophia Antipolis. Vinokourov had targeted this stage, since it fell on the anniversary of the death of his friend Andrei Kivilev in the 2003 race. It was also during this stage that Kiserlovski slid and crashed on a slippery downhill, and skidded underneath a parked truck. It took several minutes to safely extricate him, and after needing eight stitches to sew up his wounds, he did not start the final stage. Vinokourov won stage 3 of the Tour of the Basque Country with a long solo attack. Kreuziger took his first win of the season at the Giro del Trentino, winning the fourth and final stage. He also was first over the day's last two climbs, which gave him enough points to win the mountains classification. The squad also won the teams classification.
Later in April, the team took two wins at two concurrent events. In stage 2 at the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey, Valentin took his first win of the season in a field sprint, besting Alessandro Petacchi at the finish. The victory made the younger Iglinsky the race leader for a day before he ceded it to 's Manuel Belletti, winner of stage 3. Later in the race, Zeits made a fortunate breakaway which took nearly 12 minutes over the rest of the peloton. The result put him fourth in the overall standings, 20 seconds clear of the man in fifth, but 10 minutes ahead of the man in sixth. The next day, the Astana squad worked hard to get another breakaway containing Zeits to the finish line first, which resulted him in moving up to second overall. He retained this position to the conclusion of the race. At the Tour de Romandie, Vinokourov won stage 3. He, Mikaël Cherel, and Tony Martin had slipped off the front of the field when the day's principal breakaway was caught, and stayed away to allow a three-up sprint decide the winner, though they had no appreciable time gap over the fast-charging peloton at the finish. Cherel protested the results, feeling that Vinokourov's sprint had illegally impeded him, but race officials upheld the order of finish on the road. Vinokourov felt after this result that he was a strong contender for the overall crown, sitting 32 seconds back with an individual time trial, where pending race leader Pavel Brutt struggles, still to race. He finished the race third, losing time to race champion Cadel Evans in that time trial. He later said he was satisfied with this performance. However, at this race, Kiserlovski was revealed to have worse injuries from his Paris–Nice crash than first thought. An MRI taken after the Romandie prologue, due to the Croatian suffering from severe shoulder pain, revealed that he had a cracked vertebra. He abandoned the race with hopes of recovering in time for the Giro d'Italia. Vinokourov had a successful Critérium du Dauphiné. He finished second in the prologue time trial and assumed the race lead the next day on the first road race stage. He held the jersey for a second day before losing it in the stage 3 time trial, a considerably longer course than the prologue. He finished a distant 14th, having difficulty on the technical descents on the course, and slipped to fourth overall. When Janez Brajkovič faltered in stage 6, Vinokourov re-assumed a podium position, third, and kept it to the race's conclusion the next day.
The team had a very successful Tour of Austria, a race concurrent to the Tour de France. Kessiakoff rode to a strong stage 2 win on a summit finish at Kitzbüheler Horn. On a day where the composition of the leading group changed several times over rolling terrain, Kessiakoff was the first rider to attack out of the main peloton and surpassed all riders ahead of him to finish alone atop the summit. A former mountain bike veteran, this solo ride was Kessiakoff's first career road win in his third year in the discipline. The result gave him a lead of a minute and 18 seconds in the overall standings. After most of the riders finished together on the next four stages, Kessiakoff built his lead even higher in the stage 7 time trial. He was fifth, ceding time only to riders well behind him in the overall standings, extending his lead to two and a half minutes. He easily won the race overall the next day, finishing safely in the peloton in an uncomplicated sprinters' stage. After Masciarelli won the youth award at the inaugural Giro di Padania, Valentin Iglinsky provided for the team's final wins of 2011 at the Tour of Hainan. In a race that actually counted toward the 2012 Asia tour standings, Iglinsky, the race's defending champion, won stage 8 and subsequently the overall crown the next day.
The team also sent squads to the Tour Down Under, the Tour of Qatar, the Tour of Oman, the Volta ao Algarve, the Giro di Sardegna, Tirreno–Adriatico, the Volta a Catalunya, the Tour of Belgium, the Tour de Suisse, the Eneco Tour, and the Tour de l'Ain, but did not have a stage win, classification win, or podium finish in any of them.
Grand Tours
Giro d'Italia
Astana's leader for the Giro was Kreuziger. Though he had ridden six previous Grand Tours and finished in the top ten at the Tour de France twice, this was his first time riding the Giro, as his former team always inevitably had someone else in mind for leadership at the Italian tour. It was also the first time Kreuziger had ridden as the unquestioned leader in a Grand Tour. Both leadership and access to the Giro were central to Kreuziger's signing with Astana in the offseason. A team of experienced domestiques, along with Kiserlovski, the tenth-place finisher at the 2010 Giro d'Italia, were named to ride in support. Kreuziger's goal was to finish on the podium.
The team began the Giro with a poor team time trial, finishing 17th of 23 teams, immediately putting Kreuziger 50 seconds off the race lead. Kreuziger made each of the day's selections in stage 5, a hilly stage with numerous sectors of unpaved or 'white' roads, and finished with the race's top riders eight seconds back of the day's winner and new race leader Pieter Weening. This result moved Kreuziger up 42 places, from 70th to 18th, even though his time gap to the race leader remained close to the same. Kreuziger took one of the time bonuses two days later on Montevergine di Mercogliano, as the race's top riders narrowly missed taking back the last breakaway rider Bart De Clercq on the Giro's first summit finish. While the Belgian won the stage, Kreuziger's third-place ride moved him further up the classification, to 14th. Kreuziger, like the rest of the field, was greatly outclassed by Alberto Contador on Mount Etna in stage 9, but despite finishing 50 seconds back he vaulted even higher in the standings, entering the top ten overall for the first time, at seventh. He also gained the white jersey for best young rider after this stage. He held that position in stage 11, which unexpectedly became a stage for the overall classification riders despite Contador's hints that he may cede his pink jersey on this day. With Michele Scarponi's leading a strong chase, Kreuziger finished sixth on the day, amongst the race's top riders, to remain seventh overall.
Kreuziger, along with most of the race's best riders, was again out-distanced by Contador on the Grossglockner, the next summit finish. He finished sixth on the day, losing over a minute and a half. Attrition to other riders meant he actually moved up to fifth overall, though he was three and a half minutes down on Contador, a time gap unlikely to be recouped. Kreuziger faltered badly the next day on the stage ending at Monte Zoncolan. He was a distant 16th on the day, losing three and a half minutes to stage winner Igor Antón, but more importantly losing between two and three minutes to the race's other top riders. He fell down to ninth overall as a result. He regained one position the next day with ninth place on Gardeccia, but again lost time to the race's other leading riders. This was because rider Hubert Dupont fell from his position above Kreuziger in the standings. Kreuziger finished sixth in the climbing time trial to the Nevegal, but since the climb was relatively short, time gaps among the top riders were small, and he remained eighth overall as a result.