Despite being a former grand tour stage winner, Robert Förster has settled into a role as lead-out man and road captain at the UnitedHealthCare team. After returning to the big classics in 2014, the German now has set his sights on another participation in a grand tour.

In 2009, 2011 and 2013, Robert Förster could celebrate victories, As opposed to this, the UnitedHealthCare sprinter was empty-handed in the even years 2010, 2012 and 2014. However, the 36-year-old is not too frustrated by the statistics.

"Surely it would have been nice to get a victory but my job is to lead the young sprinters out and then I have had few chances myself, he told radsport-news.com.

And since he still manage to achieve good results like two second places at the Tour of Qinghai Lake and fourth places in the Tour of Oman and the Tour of Langkawi, the German is "quite satisfied" with the past season.

For the veteran, it was important that his UnitedHealthCare team that he has been riding for since 2011, again took a step up.

"Maybe this was not necessarily reflected in the results but we had many invitations to ASO races and were also at the start of Milan-Sanremo where we performed well," said Förster whose personal highlight in addition to La Primavera was Paris-Roubaix.

In 2015, the former Gerolsteiner rider will do his fifth season with the American pro continental team. He hopes that the team will receive its first wildcard for a grand tour. "Furthermore, we want to be in contention for the podium in big races," he added.

His role will be the same as in previous years. 

"I want to pass on my experience to the young racers," he announced. As the statistics show, there is a big chance that he will also be able to celebrate a personal victory at some point in 2015.