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Astana experienced a roller coaster season in 2006. Astana was disqualified from the 2006 Tour de France when too many of their riders where caught up in the Operation Puerto investigation, leaving them too few to compete. However later in the year, Alexandre Vinokourov won the Vuelta a Espana.
The Astana Team, is a professional road bicycle racing team sponsored by the Astana group, a coalition of companies from Kazakhstan, named after its capital, recently Arcelor Mittal descided to be co-sponsor for at least the 2007 season. The team has UCI ProTour status, is Swiss based and managed by former Tour de Suisse organiser Marc Biver. The team's leader is Alexander Vinokourov.
Some riders and staff joined the team from the former Liberty Seguros-Würth Team, also known as Würth Team and Astana-Würth Team. For more information on this team, see Liberty Seguros-Würth.
The UCI ProTour license commission first informed Astana Team that they would not be granted a ProTour License for the 2007 season. Following UCI's decision not to grant a ProTour license, the organizers of the three Grand Tours informed Astana Team that they would be included, regardless of ProTour license status. On December 20, 2006 the UCI License Commission awarded Astana Team with a 4 year ProTour license.
