After the cobbled campaign, with only a 17th place at the Tour of Flanders, the team manager Brent Copeland made no secret of his reservations about the Filippo Pozzato’s preparation. The man from Sandrigo, who will be the Lampre Merida leader at the Dubaï Tour, answered about it in an interview with Cyclingnews.

"There were some big problems, which haven't all been resolved yet. Brent maybe didn't know everything so perhaps that's why gave those interviews. Maybe now he knows what problems there are and hopefully we manage to sort them out before the classics", he explained.

The first time since 2012, Pozzto changed his winter program: "I'd gone to California for each of the last three years, but this time I decided to stay at home to make sure there wouldn't be any problems with the team if I wasn't around. This time I've changed the work I'm doing at home a bit, and I think I'm already going a little bit better. I’m already dealing well with accelerations and changes in pace whereas normally in the first races of the year I'm still trying to get up to speed, so I'm confident."

He began his 2015 season in Argentina, at the Tour de San Luis. This month, he will race Tour of Qatar and Tour of Oman. On returning to Europe, he lines up at Strade Bianche and Tirreno-Adriatico and Flanders. 

"It's what I wanted to do. I've done a lot of base work at home but I realised that I need to race more. In that period last year, I did a lot of work and I did fifteen days of altitude training, but this time around I'd rather do a lot of races all in a row."