The 2010 season for the Astana cycling team began in January with the Tour Down Under and ended in October at the Giro di Lombardia.

The team similarly saw many notable riders depart, including Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, Andreas Klöden, and the rest of Astana's squad from the 2009 Tour de France save champion Alberto Contador.

Maxim Iglinskiy won Montepaschi Strade Bianche in March, a rare spring season one-day win in the team's history.

He made his race-winning move against breakaway companions Thomas Lövkvist and Michael Rogers 200 m (660 ft) from the finish line, as the road narrowed.

[4] A solid second place in the event's closing individual time trial meant Contador retained the lead through the conclusion of the race.

Later, Vinokourov turned in a fourth-place ride, five seconds off the winning time set by Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins.

This left only the minimum of five riders together, and in the last kilometer, Štangelj also fell off, and the remaining team members had to wait for him at the finish line.

Astana was one of the only teams who did not have a rider finish ahead of the peloton, and the result was Vinokourov again losing the pink jersey, this time to Richie Porte.

[13] He was eighth in the climbing time trial to Plan de Corones and finished with the second group on the road, for fourth, in stage 19 which featured the Passo del Mortirolo.

[16] Two-time and defending champion Contador was one of the riders frequently cited as a major favorite to win the Tour de France.

[22] In the next stage, after the first rest day, Contador and Schleck made a move which ensured that they would finish in the top two spots on the podium at the end of the race.

On the Col de la Madeleine, an hors catégorie climb (and the fourth of the day), the two broke away from the race's other overall contenders.

They met and bridged up to Jens Voigt, a member of the morning escape, who paced them (on Schleck's behalf) to a sizeable gap over the peloton they had left behind.

[24] The next day, Vinokourov took his stage win, coming home 13 seconds ahead of the peloton with a late attack, denying the sprinters that finished at the head of the main field.

Contador's advantage over Schleck was at this point only eight seconds, and there remained an extremely difficult mountain stage and an individual time trial.

Contador was 35th on the stage, nearly six minutes down on the day's winner Fabian Cancellara, but he extended his lead over Schleck to 39 seconds – the exact amount of time he had gained as a result of the Luxembourger's mechanical incident on the Port de Balès.

[29] In September 2010, Contador revealed that a urine sample he had given on July 21, a rest day in the Tour de France, had contained traces of clenbuterol.

He has stated, due to the number of other tests he passed and that only a tiny amount of the substance was detected in the one he failed, that food contamination was to blame.

Pereiro attempted a faith-healing cure as well as conventional treatment, but did not take the Vuelta's start in Seville, essentially hastening his retirement.

[47] Bazayev was part of the morning breakaway in stage 8, and held on for eighth on the day as the race's top riders chased the break down.

[49] The team's highest-placed rider in the final overall standings was Jufré in 24th, at a deficit of almost 33 minutes to Vuelta champion Vincenzo Nibali.