BMC Racing team certainly have some high hopes in regards to the coming classics season following the latest general makeover of the squad in courtesy of their new manager Allan Peiper, and despite the late loss of Tylor Phinney due to a fever, the American squad line up with a strong roster for the year’s first monument coming this Sunday.

Reportedly with regained confidence and motivation as well as with better defined targets for 2014 season, the BMC Racing riders are eager to finally excel in the spring classics after a highly disappointing last two years marked by their no more than anonymous performances.

Differently than several World Tour outfits providing sprinters with reliable team-mates at their full disposal up to the highly anticipated bunch sprint along Sanremo’s seaside, the American team decided to stick to the original plan and enter the race with two captains: Philippe Gilbert and Greg Van Avermaet, despite the route changes. Even though Thor Hushovd is present in BMC roster for La Primavera as their genuine chance should the race be decided from a big group, it is really hard to consider Norwegian a serious contender given his performances so far this season.

Struggling to come even close to the stunning disposition which led him to dominate all Ardennes classics back in 2011, Gilbert kicked off 2014 season with an entirely novel race programme introduced by Peiper, containing fewer but better defined goals. Milano-Sanremo was on the list of his major objectives right from the beginning and even though the route change certainly doesn’t play in his favor, the 31-year old Belgian still believes that a scenario seeing him right in the mix when the monument comes to its conclusion in Sanremo is possible.

“I was good at Tirreno-Adriatico, and I like Sanremo. We are a classics team,” said Gilbert. “My dream is to win all the classics, and I am not doing Flanders or Roubaix, so it’s a dream to win. We are all dreaming about Milano-Sanremo. We all start to win,” Gilbert told VeloNews.

The lack of ability to cope with a big pressure, apart from targeting too many races, could well be seen as a reason for Gilbert’s continuous failures last two seasons and the Belgian classics specialist confirmed he would be pleased to share leadership responsibilities with in-form Van Avermaet in La Primavera.

“It’s always good to have more than one in the final. There is less pressure on one guy. We can also play this against other teams. If one of us goes, the other can stay back and wait for the reaction,” Gilbert said.

“But we are not the only team without a sprinter. Cannondale, too, with [Peter] Sagan, he likes it to be a smaller group.”

Asked about the ‘soap opera’ concerning the Milano-Sanremo route changes, the 31-year old Belgian confirmed he would prefer the initial parcours that RCS Sport prepared for this year’s edition with a new La Pompeiana climb inserted between the well known Cipressa and Poggio, effectively preventing pure sprinters to rejoin the leading group before the finale.

However, Gilbert still believes in his chances to excel on the historical route and apart from pointing out to the weather conditions expected to be important factor on Sunday, the BMC rider offered more thorough analysis of possible scenarios.

“I can be a contender with this course, with the other course, if they do this climb [Pompeiana], it’s better for me. I’ve never won this race, but I can also be deep in the final,” Gilbert said. “It’s longer to the finish line now. It’s no longer on the Via Roma. The hardest thing in this race is the distance from bottom of Poggio to the finish line.”

“It’s a special race. In other races, you know with 40km if you can go deep into the final. Here, you’re never sure. This is one of these races where you can have a lot of different type of riders who can win,” Gilbert said.

“You have riders like me and Greg, you have the sprinters, and even some climbers. I was looking at YouTube, and I even saw [Marco] Pantani attacking on the Cipressa. So many riders can win. It’s not like Flanders, where only a few can win. Here, we are all together.”

The runner up to Ian Stannard in this year’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, in-form Van Avermaet will co-captain the squad, certainly hungry to clock his first victory in major event following the almost endless string of the near misses that over time became the infuriating specialty of 28-year old Belgian.

“This is the first big test of the year,” Van Avermaet said. “This is a good start before the Flanders classics. It’s also a race that I’ve liked since the first time I raced when I was 22. It’s a special race, with a long distance. It’s a nervous race, a fast race.”

Van Avermaet also emphasized that weather can play an important role in how the race plays out, however, the latest information suggests that anticipated rainfall won’t occur on Sunday with a strong wind being forecasted.

“The descents are very slippery in the rain,” Van Avermaet said. “It’s too far to attack from the Cipressa. If it’s raining, the descent off the Poggio is very tricky.”

BMC is hoping one of its riders is the right type when the 105th edition of Milano-Sanremo barrels onto the Italian Riviera.