With a 16th place finish, FDJ didn't attract much attention in yesterday's Giro d'Italia team time trial but the team ended the opening day with a sense of sastisfaction. Having raced their stage under torrential rain, the team delivered a solid performance and sports director Franck Pineau was pleased with the performance shown by some of his key riders.

FDJ have entered the Giro d'Italia with a dual approach. Most importantly, the French team targets stage wins with Nacer Bouhanni in the sprints but Alexandre Geniez and maybe even Francis Mourey will also try to do a achieve a good result in the overall standings.

Yesterday's opening team time trial was important in view of the latter objective but for the Frenchmen it was all about limiting the losses A 16th place finish may not look too impressive but the team was badly affected by the bad weather, with the rain starting to fall just as they had started their ride.

"For our part we had the misfortune to ride during the storm, with a violent wind blowing in the second part of a very beautiful course," sports director Martial Gayant said. "For the later starters, it was sunny and there was no wind and I think our result is due to these changing conditions. 

"Our riders were motivated. I saw a great Johan Le Bon, a good Alexander Géniez. Laurent Pichon is not bad either, like Jussi Veikkanen who is very strong this year, and I was surprised by Nacer Bouhanni. 

"We lost 1'18'' to the winners but only 23 seconds to the Movistar team in eighth. I'm not disappointed in what I saw if I remember last year's TTT in Naples where we were 19th."

The team is now looking forward to today's second stage.

"Let's sett whether we can do the first sprint," Gayant said.