Alberto Contador, speaking at the Abu Dhabi Tour, has described how his season has been one of two halves. Now, he is seeking another crack at winning his first Tour de France since his suspension with Trek-Segafredo.

"I think I had different emotions during the 2016 season. I was very happy in the first part because my performance was very, very high, one of the highest in my whole career. This changed my vision for the future and I took the decision to continue," he told Cyclingnews. "I'm not happy with the result in the Tour de France. I trained very hard for this race and with the falls in the first two days, everything went out. I tried to continue but I wasn't in the condition to fight for victory.”

Contador says he enjoyed the Vuelta, but the result he achieved was not the one he sought, meaning his home race also left a bad taste in his mouth.

"At the Vuelta I also don't have the best memories. It's my home race and so it's special. I enjoyed the race but my objective wasn't to fight for third position but to fight for the win. I crashed before the big mountain stage and we lost big time in the team time trial, which was not good. But it's all motivation for the next year."

Contador says he and his new teammates are aiming to be firing on all cylinders at the Tour next year, in a course Contador says suits him better than this year’s did.

"It's hard to have a very good team around a leader in all the races and you need a good programme so that the team is 100 per cent at the Tour. I think next year we will look at everything for the overall and that is crucial.”

"I haven't looked at the route in detail, I haven't seen the stage profiles, so it's difficult to say if I like it or not. It's not bad not to have a final 55km flat time trial. I like that it's shorter and think it means the race will be more open until the finale. We will try to take all the opportunities that we have in the race."