Inequality between cycling team did increase, mostly because of growing differences between WT and PCT teams. This is caused for the biggest part caused by the best climbers and GC-riders who went from PCT to WT teams and little less by the best hill specialist and time trialists. Within WT teams the main reason for growing differences are sprinters who are now more concentrated in the best WT teams.
The cycling predictions by Mortirolo are purely based on a statistical model, not on (expert based) opinions. The method used is a combination of Bayesian modelling and machine learning. The statistical model uses the results of the same (type) of races during the last ten years to determine which individual and team characteristics are important predictors for the classification of that race. Subsequently, the statistical model is used to run 10000 simulations of a race and produces probabilities for each rider to win, end up on the podium and in the top 10 and a predicted classification.