Quick-Step Floors team manager Patrick Lefevere was at the Dubai Tour last week and liked what he saw as his riders produced some powerful lead-outs and Marcel Kittel finished off their work, winning three stages and securing overall victory for a second consecutive year.
The Dubai Tour might not offer WorldTour points and is only the first of many clashes between Kittel, Mark Cavendish, Elia Viviani, John Degenkolb and other fast men. However, Lefevere was happy to see his riders so successful, so strong and so impressive in the high-speed lead-outs early in the season.
Bob Jungels and neo-pro Maximilian Schachmann did long stints on the front of the peloton chasing down breaks while Matteo Trentin and Fabio Sabatini were exemplary in the final kilometre, almost always out-gunning Dimension Data, Trek-Segafredo, LottoNL-Jumbo and Team Sky.
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The veteran Belgian manager is working to secure sponsorship of the team for 2018 and so is no doubt keen to rack up victories early in the season to convince potential new sponsors to come on board. The 2017 season is only three weeks old but Quick-Step Floors riders have already won ten races – far more than any other squad at any level.
New signing Jack Bauer won the first by taking the New Zealand national time trial title on January 6, then Fernando Gaviria, Tom Boonen and Max Richeze won five stages between them at the Vuelta a San Juan. Kittel was the protected sprinter for the Dubai Tour and his three stage victories and overall victory put Quick-Step Floors into double figures, while many teams have yet to win a single race.
Quick-Step Floors were hardly seen at the WorldTour-level Tour Down Under in Australia but Lefevere is more bothered about the quantity of victories rather the quality in the early season. Quality will be important on home turf in the cobbled Classics.
Gaviria and Kittel on different race programmes
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