After settling in well and winning at the Tour of Qatar with Dimension Data, Mark Cavendish has spoken about how strange it is to be racing against his old Etixx-QuickStep team, where he spent the last three seasons.

“It’s superb [at Dimension Data], it’s really good fun, it’s really relaxed. I’ve actually only done a few days racing, we only had one training camp, so I don’t know everyone so well yet, but we’re definitely having a lot of fun,” Cavendish told Sporza before the Tour of Qatar.

Cavendish has always said that he left the Belgian team with nothing but nice things to say about them, but after racing in Dubai, he experienced how strange it was to be racing against them.

“At the end of the day, I was super happy with Etixx as well. I haven’t left Etixx with any bad feelings at all. In fact, I miss the people there, I miss some great people that I had great times with. It felt so weird, having to hit elbows with the guys in the sprints, I didn’t really like it. But it’s a job, it’s our sport, it’s what we do.”