After more than two months without a single victory, Nacer Bouhanni finally opened his account for Cofidis when he continued his love affair with the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe by winning the opening stage. After the early break had been caught inside the final kilometre, he beat Nathan Haas (Cannondale-Garmin) and Raymond Kreder (Roompot) into the minor positions in the bunch sprint to take the first leader’s jersey in the race.

Going into the 2015 season, Cofidis felt assured that they would win a lot more in 2015 than they had done in the past few years. Having signed Nacer Bouhanni who has been one of the most successful rider in the last few years, they seemed to be destined to take several prestigious victories.

The team significantly bolstered their lead-out train but in the first part of the season, nothing has worked for the French team. Despite a pretty heavy racing schedule, Bouhanni came up short in several bunch sprint in the first two months of his time at Cofidis.

The situation looked even more dark last Friday when he missed out on what seemed to be a guaranteed win in the Route Adelie de Vitré where Romain Feillu (Bretagne) relegated him into second. Today, however, he finally managed to break the drought when he won the first stage of the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe.

"It is a relief," he told Cyclingpro.net. "This is the first time that my first win of the season has come so late and this one was not easy to get. In the early part of the race, we didn't get much help from other teams and had to use Dominique Rollin to catch the break even though he was expected to do the lead-out with Christophe Laporte.

"My peak shape was scheduled for Paris-Nice and Milan-San Remo. The shape was there and it is still there but the victory did not come. I changed my team. It took a little time to find the automatisms. We did Paris-Nice with seven riders after losing my lead-out man Geoffrey Soupe. I had the legs to win a stage in Paris-Nice but I did not have my lead-out man. Now I have taken a win and gained confidence. The year is long.

"Now I want to win tomorrow in Angers. It is an finale that I know. I won there with the FDJ team wearing the French champion's jersey Today is my third victory in this race. I have done it every year since my debut (it is his fifth consecutive participation, ed.). I like this stage race. It is hilly and offers several sprint finishes. I focus on them, not the overall standings even though I will wear the yellow jersey because there is also a time trial tomorrow and it's not my specialty. The stage to Pré-en-Pail on Thursday is really hard. I will take the opportunity to save myself for the final stage."