It comes as no surprise that after equaling the record of Ronde van Vlaanderen victories last weekend, Fabian Cancellara is considered a main favorite to take the spoils in the Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. While the Swiss classics specialist is hungry to write another page in the history on the French cobbled parcours, he denies to have a love affair with the race and claims that the pressure is on riders still lacking victories in the spring season.

Even though Cancellara will line up at the start of the Hell of the North without his key supporting rider, Stijn Devolder, the 33-year old Swiss still remains confident ahead of the opportunity to get a record-equaling fourth victory at the Roubaix velodrome and to become the first rider who managed three double wins in both cobbled monuments.

However, the Trek Factory Racing leader insists that despite his excellent showing in the Ronde van Vlaanderen last weekend he wouldn’t be the number one favorite to conquer French pave and turns all the pressure on riders who still didn’t manage to deliver respectable results in the classics this season.

“I’m not favourite number one. Like in Flanders there’s lot of other favourites and riders riding in good condition. Things will be changed this year. The race is open for everyone. If I get five stars or not, it’s not my decision. There’s a lot more riders with five stars to me, but they’re under more pressure because they haven’t won. There’s Kristoff, Sagan and Terpstra, they’ve won the recent races we went through. The rest haven’t won. The campaign of the Classics finishes on the velodrome and that’s why there’s still a lot of people are hungry. I’m hungry as well and that’s why, let’s go and have a great meet,” Cancellara said.

“Just Tom, me and Vansummeren have won. The rest of the peloton hasn’t won. That puts the rest of the teams under more pressure.”

"With my win in Flanders, the other [teams] have to move. That’s why I probably enjoy it even more,” Cancellara said, expecting a super strong Omega Pharma – Quick-Step team and the Belkin team to take the initiative. “Then we also have Greg [Van Avermaet (BMC)]. He showed he’s in super condition, but it’s not because we lost Stijn that our team is going to sit back.”

While it seems true that there won’t be a huge pressure on Cancellara since his recent victory in Ronde van Vlaanderen provided Trek Factory Racing with enough reasons to call their spring campaign successful, the 33-year old classics specialist still admits that a possibility of making history on Roubaix velodrome makes him hungry.

“Yeah, of course. It’s there. It’s no secret. We had that last year too with the possibilities for Tom. It’s not only about winning tomorrow, but also about history. It makes me really hungry,” Cancellara said. “When the fourth stone will be won I’ll have to change something at home as we only have three windows in the sauna, but I don’t care. To be so close to something like this, I know what I have to do.”

While Cancellara managed the impressive victory in Oudenaarde last Sunday, his showing arguably wasn’t as dominant as in some of previous years. However, the Trek Factory Racing rider claims that it has more to do with the race being more demanding than usually than his disposition, described as better than last seasons.

“I feel much better than in the past days. That was important because Sunday was tougher than in other years in my opinion. I won and had the race in Scheldeprijs, which was important to do, stretching and doing 200km. Then there was the recon on the parcours yesterday and now there’s just two days of relaxing and getting ready for Sunday.”

Even though the Swiss time trialist pointed out several times that favourable weather conditions were the reason for more riders reaching a very high disposition early in the season and thus extended a normally limited range of contenders ahead of the spring classics, he still hopes for another sunny ride in France this weekend.

.

“I’m looking forward to a sunny race in France,” Cancellara said.

The three time Paris-Roubaix champion also emphasized that his special relation with the French monument has more to do with a war he urges himself to win despite the pain and difficulties, than with a love affair.

“When it would be love I would do more. It’s not hate but more a war with the cobbles. I want to win the war with the cobbles. It hurts a lot, especially when you’re going slow. That’s why you have to go fast and get as fast as you can off the cobbles. You have to push a lot and go through a lot of pain. You must be ready for suffering.”

“There’s no correct word for this race. The first time I did Roubaix I hated this race. The first time I came through Arenberg and got to the feed zone you’re just happy to find a car that brings you to the finish. It was a nice story. I came to the velodrome and lost again, but I did a strong move. This week I watched it again and wondered why I did that strong move. Ballerini told me it was probably good I lost it there. If you win it early there would be a lot of pressure at young age in the following year. You need leergeld,” Cancellara surprisingly knew nothing but the Flemish word to describe he had to pay his dues.

“These two years showed that I don’t love the race but there’s something with the race. I’m not going to race at home on cobbles. It’s just really this day.”

Asked about the riders who inspired him most to develop his tricky relationship with cobbled races and, as a result, to become one of the most successful classics specialists of his times, Cancellara pointed out to Italians Ballerini and Tafi, as well as Belgian star Johan Museeuw.

“With Ballerini, Museeuw and Tafi, they inspired me most when I watched these races. When I did my first Roubaix I remember I had stopped already two and a half minutes. Taffi was there with me and he went on to finish sixth or so [he finished fifth -ed] so that’s where I learned that you can never give up. He gave me the inspiration to learn things. On a ranking from 1 to 10 Ballerini was the number ten, the man with most class, elegance to ride over the cobbles. To get this feedback from him after I lost Roubaix was a huge boost.”

As the cobbled classics were the biggest objectives of the season for the Trek Factory Racing captain, his race programme for the rest of the year is yet to determined after the spring campaigns comes to its conclusion on Sunday.

“We’ll sit down with the team after the race to discuss the races and my training schedule.”