Nacer Bouhanni has a 2013 season of ups and downs. With 11 wins, he had his most successful season ever but injuries and illness forced him to leave his maiden Tour de France prematurely. Nonetheless, he is satisfied with his season and is delighted to see his team mix it up with the big sprint trains in a much more level playing field.

Nacer Bouhanni has long been regarded as a huge sprinting talent. After a calm start to his professional in 2011, he gave the first glimpses of his potential in 2012 when he won the French championships and got close to a first grand tour stage win in the Vuelta a Espana.

However, it is his 2013 exploits that have truly moved him up towards the top of the sprinting hierarchy. Having already beaten some of the greatest sprinters on the final stage of the Tour of Oman, he took his first WorldTour win in the Paris-Nice and his stage 1 win was enough to put him into the overall lead. He crashed out of the race one day later but returned to form later in March by winning the Val d'Ille Classic and a stage in the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe.

He made his debut in the Giro d'Italia where he was one of the closest challengers to an almost unbeatable Mark Cavendish but left the race early to prepare for his first participation in the Tour de France. He fought hard to win a stage in the Criterium du Dauphiné but struggled on the mountainous course and left the race empty-handed before lining up in the world's biggest race.

That ended up being a completely forgettable experience. Having already crashed on stage 1, he battled illness on stage 5 but still chose to participate in the bunch sprint in Marseille. He caused the big crash that cost Jurgen van den Broeck his further participation and his own injuries took him out of the race one day later.

Having left the disappointment behind him, he bounced back in the final part of the season by winning 7 races - among those the big home classics GP de Fourmies and Tour de Vendee as well as two WorldTour races in the Tour of Beijing - and ended the season on a high note. With 11 wins, he truly marked himself out as one of the best sprinters in the world.

While the disappointments still have a prominent place in his memory, Bouhanni is happy with his season.

"Yes, I was consistent all year but I missed out in the Tour de France. That is my only disappointment, " he told Velochrono in an interview. "The Dauphiné and the Tour didn't work. But I have learnt my lessons for the rest of my career. I questioned myself and it gave me the strength at the end of the season.

To overcome his great disappointment the the Grande Boucle, Bouhanni took a complete rest.

"After the Tour, I trained really hard," he said. "First I had eight or nine days without touching the bike as I tried to forget about it. Then I started to train with Steve Chainel without thinking about anything concrete. I did a lot of kilometres and rode a lot without intensity. Only when I approached my comeback, did I work on my speed again."

Bouhanni had bad luck twice this year: in the Paris-Nice and in the Tour de France. Having made a costly mistake in the sprint, he approached his recovery from his Tour crash much wiser.

"If you look at my season, I've been away from racing for more than two months," he said. "But I had two very different approaches. When I crashed in the Paris-Nice with the yellow jersey, I tried to come back very quickly despite a broken rib. I was back on the bike two days later. It felt as if I had been punched in the ribs. I wanted to ride the Milan-Sanremo so I was in a hurry. I finally returned at the Criterium International. In Corsica, i was last on the climbs and everything felt wrong. I still finished second in Porto-Vecchio but it was an immature mistake to start too quickly. I learned that I had to be more patient and that's what I was when I left the Tour de France."

The Dauphiné was Bouhanni's final race in the tricolour jersey of French champion and he had hoped to wave goodbye to the coveted tunic in a better way.

"I used a lot of energy in the Giro," he said. "I was rarely on the bike between the Giro and the Dauphiné and there was a lot of rain at home. In June, we rode in the heat. The worst thing is that I thought I had the legs when I arrived at the Dauphiné. When you think you will do well and you are getting dropped... Furthermore, it was my final race in the French champion's jersey. It was the end of a year in blue, white and read and it didn't work. It was hard. Even when I am only at 80%, I want to win."

However, his greatest disappointment came at the Tour. He admits that it was partly his own fault.

"I was caught in the crash on the first day," he said. "They I had stomach problems. On the stage to Marseille, on the Col de la Gineste, I survived the final climb in the peloton. I wanted to do the sprint. I should never have done that but I hadn't done a single sprint in the race at that point. There were a lot of expectations. I wanted to be there but I couldn't. It is a mistake to participate in a sprint when you are not on 100% but rather on 50%."

2013 was not only a great success for Bouhanni. His FDJ team probably had its best season ever and even changed its approach to the races as the wins kept coming. Having always played the role of underdog, the team started to take the responsibility to control the race and set up its star sprinters Bouhanni and Arnaud Demare.

"When you look at the sprinting world, the guys that take the wins, are those who are well-supported. In the last part of the season, there has been a big change in the team. When a race could end in a sprint, all riders knew what they had to do. The riders rode 100% for the team which means for Arnaud or me. In the last two months, we did very well."

In recent years, Mark Cavendish and Andre Greipel have been the dominant sprinters but their supremacy have been challenged by a number of upcoming sprinters. Bouhanni is delighted to see a more level playing field in the bunch sprints.

"If w go a few years back, Mark  Cavendish and Andre Greipel controlled everything with their teams," he said. "Now we have Argos with Marcel Kittel and John Degenkolb, Cannondlae with Peter Sagan and Elia Viviani, FDJ.fr with Arnaud Demare and me. It's more homogeneous, there is more fighting. We are getting better at keeping our positions in the sprints because there is more respect."

Next year Bouhanni will once again share sprinting duties with Demare. While the schedule still hasn't been unveiled to the public, manager Marc Madiot recently said that the two sprinters can co-exist in the same team but that they will not race the same races.

What that means for Bouhanni's 2014 season remains to be seen but it is hard to bet against the fast Frenchman clocking up several big wins in the future.