Marcel Kittel will lead Team Giant-Shimano in the Tour of Britain which starts on Sunday. The German is set to go head to head with Mark Cavendish in the many sprint finishes in the Brit's home race.

Marcel Kittel returns to stage race action this weekend at the week-long Tour of Britain, heading a strong team focused on stage results.

Kittel will have two riders from his lead-out formation at the Tour de France here with him in the form of Albert Timmer and Tom Veelers. Bert De Backer also makes a welcome return to racing after his fall back in June at the ZLM Toer.

The race gets underway with a perfect opportunity for a sprint in Liverpoll with a flat circuit of 13.1km to be covered eight times. Stage two could be another good chance before a tough hill finish on day three.

The race comes to a climax in the capital, London the following Sunday with a split day of an individual time trial in the morning followed by another flat circuit in the afternoon where you can expect another fast finish.

"The first goal here will be to target the flat stages for a sprint with Marcel," said team coach Marc Reef. "The race presents plenty of different opportunities and it will be quite open for the riders to take their own chances.

"With just six riders on the team it makes it quite hard to control and this means that we will also have to be opportunistic where we can. I hope that Albert can also try for a nice result on the GC but there is no pressure for this and we will take it day by day.

"Teun [van Erp - Scientific Expert] has analysed the finishes on google maps and using the GPX files from the race, and this helps us in making our plan for each stage.

"Bert also returns to racing here and he will use this race to build his shape for the last part of the season. We look forward to having him back."