The BMC Racing Team placed sixth in the team time trial that opened the Tour de Romandie Tuesday.

Team Sky won the 19.2-kilometer race against the clock, less than a second ahead of ORICA-GreenEDGE. The BMC Racing Team was 19 seconds off the winning time.

"It was a really nice course. It was a nice wide road. It really showed what team time trials can be like. It showed the speciality of that event so I take my hat off for the race organization," Rohan Dennis said.

"We always hope to take first but we have a young team here. A couple of guys did their first team time trial so to come off with what I think is a top 5 or something is not a bad result. It was less than 20 seconds behind a very strong Sky team.

"We have a good couple of climbers. Senni is very young but he can climb very well. Caruso was top 10 in the Vuelta last year and Atapuma is like a mountain goat. My objective is the GC. I have a couple of guys to back me up if my legs are on fire one of the days. And I am really looking forward to the time trial as well."

"It was good but there is a little bit of deception," sports director Max Sciandri said. "We lost Amael Moinard after 8k and he was a pretty important guy for the last climb. Manuel Senni, the young kid, jumped into his place and really held onto the guys. They had to slow down and wait a little bit for him. We had expected a little bit more but they gave 100% so I am happy. Good start.

"We are going to start out with two leaders, with Rohan Dennis and Damiano Caruso. The GC is going to be in our heads but we will look at it day by day. We would like to win a stage. Atapuma is coming out really well from Pais Vasco going into the Giro so he could be the guy to be there for the stages. I think Damiano has the same thing in his mind. And we have Rohan for the final stage with Stefan Küng. We have a good team with some young guys."