Last year Etixx-QuickStep had their Cobbled campaign saved by Niki Terpstra’s win at Paris-Roubaix, and unless they can achieve the same result this year, the Belgian team will not be pleased with their work this spring. 

The team has only managed to win Kuuren-Brussels-Kuurne with Mark Cavendish while Terpstra was runner up at Gent-Wevelgem and Flanders. They lost Tom Boonen to injury for the whole cobbled campaign and Stijn Vandenbergh hasn’t been firing on all cylinders. Stybar won Strade Bianvhe but is still awaiting a big cobbled win.

Manger Patrick Lefevere says that Boonen is a loss but the team has done well to get on with the loss and still get good results, something he says not many other teams could have done.

“I’m able to make peace with these results, especially because we were at the start without our strong leader,” said general manager, Patrick Lefevere.

“Other teams would weep from here to Tokyo and back if they had start in Bruges in those circumstances, but we had a combative team.”

Yet he does still lament Boonen’s loss, as he is arguably the best cobbled rider over the 21st Century.

“With all due respect to my riders,” Lefevere added, “Tom’s record is greater than that of the whole team together.”

Lefevere knows his team ahs been lucky, as when Cancellara crashed out for Trek in the Classics, they lost everything.

“I won’t complain, we aren’t the only team who had bad luck. Look at team Trek, they only had one leader, Fabian Cancellara, and they lost him,” Lefevere told VeloNews.

“My sponsors are already happy with what we’ve done. We are there, and we are playing an important role since the first race of the season. From Dubai to Paris-Nice, we’ve been playing for the win. We have the most wins [18] of any team.”

But last year Terpstra came forward and drank in the last chance saloon bar, and held his nerve to win Roubaix, something Lefevere says can easily happen again, and he wont pass comment on the Classics until Roubaix is over.

“Let’s talk again after Paris-Roubaix.”