Lampre-Merida began the month of March with a victory: Niccolò Bonfazio emerged as the strongest at the GP Lugano, celebrating his first seasonal success.

The twenty-one-year old Italian rider won the final sprint at the end of the 184,9 km course, beating Francesco Gavazzi, Matteo Montaguti and Rasmus Guldhammer and thus completing the great performance of the whole blue-fuchsia-green team.

In fact, Lampre-Merida were always in front, starting with the young Slovenian rider Luka Pibernik who joined a breakaway with 17 members.

The attackers led the race for 150km but the bunch completed the chase just before the final passage on the hill of Soragno where Przemslaw Niemiec reached the summit in the front positions.

In the approach to the final climb of the course (Ruvigliana), 8 riders escaped and Valerio Conti was among them. However, the attack was neutralized.

In the downhill section, the bunch was reduced and Davide Cimolai lost contact when he hit another rider. But Niemiec was perfect in preparing the sprint for Bonifazio who did not miss the winning shot.

The success is the 7th victory in the career for "Nick the Quick", the 5th for LAMPRE-MERIDA in 2015.

"I'm very satisfied with this first seasonal victory, GP Lugano is a demanding race and so this result makes me happy, he explained. 

"After the exciting final of 2014 with the success in the Coppa Agostoni and the Tour of Hainan, I had a quiet winter and I resumed training with great motivation, with a great desire to improve myself. The season started in Australia and since then the condition has grown to the current level.

"Today I felt good, I was calm and I knew I had a teammate, Cimolai, who would have been a good alternative. As the legs were good, I decided to take the final climb in a good position to avoid gaps and I was always near the front. Everything went well.  Niemiec put me in position and I had no trouble taking the win.

"I did a great sprintand I have to thank my teammates for the great help, especially Niemiec who guided me up to 700 meters to go. Then I accelerated and passed first through the final corner to take the win. The sprint is my specialty. From the outside it seems that everything is easy but it is what I do best. Then I concentrate my training on getting better on the climbs.

"During the race, Rusvelo did a great job because they had missed the move Then Tinkoff tried to make the race hard, but it was not enough and we took advantage of remaining covered. It was exciting racing on the circuit with a large audience that cheered us whenever we passed through the finish line. 

"Now it is Paris-Nice and Milan-San Remo where I will try to take advantage of my good condition and then I'm going to race in Belgium, the races of my dreams, especially Paris-Roubaix, since last year knee problems prevented me from doing as good as I wanted."

"Our race plan was fulfilled to perfection, with Pibernik to cover the first escape, Conti to move in the finale and the duo of fast riders Cimolai and Bonifazio to manage themselves for the sprint," sports director Simone Pedrazzini said. "Bonifazio gave positive signals in the race and we decided to focus on him for the sprint, but we could not count on Cimolai who was behind due to an unfortunate incident. Niccolo did very well to prevail, because the group had been reduced to a little more than twenty riders. I want to emphasize that this is a victory for the young riders as Pibernik, Conti and Bonifazio are all less than 22 years old."