Having just finished a great 2015 season, Stefano Zanini is getting ready for a new, challenging year. The Astana sports director has played a key role, especially in the season finale where the team won both the Vuelta and Il Lombardia. He does not hide his big ambitions for the new season, hoping to take home other prestigious results.

“We are preparing with great serenity,” he tells Spaziociclismo. “2015 went well as we won the Vuelta, did a great Lombardia and achieved many other good things with different riders. Therefore, it was a good season. It’s clear that we must always improve so we'll try to win more next year.”

“[I expect] seriousness and great concentration. We are calm because we have an amazing staff, very professional, and the riders are just as professional. The group is very good and this is a very important thing soI think all the conditions to win are there. Whether it is the Giro or the Tour, the important thing is to win.”

Next year the team will have to do without Mikel Landa who has moved to Team Sky.

“Everyone has his own characteristics and his own personality,” Zanini says. “I think that Landa is unique, a rider who is so peaceful even in times of great pressure. I'm very sorry that he will leave because he's a great rider and will continue to be so. He has done great things, both for himself and for the team and has been central in both the Giro and the Vuelta, and all we thank him. We have other riders who definitely will not be easy to hold back like Fuglsang and Kangert and there is an emerging Rosa. So we lost a great athlete but we are not lacking riders in this excellent team.”