Domenico Pozzovivo has been a WorldTour pro since 2013, but his long awaited Tour de France debut will finally come in the 2016 edition, as he aims to stage hunt and help Romain Bardet.

“The decision has been made based on the routes of both the Giro and the Tour,” Pozzovivo told Cyclingnews at the Tour of Oman. “This year the Giro is slightly less demanding than in recent seasons, especially in the first part. So it might be possible to come there a little short of top condition and build up through the first week.”

“As for the Tour, it will depend a bit on how I recover from the Giro, and I’ll decide based on that whether to go there for stage wins or for a high place on GC.”

While Bardet will lead AG2R in the race, Pozzovivo knows he will have a chance to be let of the leash once the race hits the high mountains. Jan Bakelants and Alexis Vuillermoz were given freedom last year despite Bardet going for the top ten, with the latter taking a brilliant win before Bardet repeated that feat later in the race.

“I’ll have enough freedom,” Pozzovivo said. “Even though Romain will be the leader, I’ll still be protected by the team.”

The Giro is still his biggest objective and after crashing out last year, he aims to be on the final podium come the end of the 21 stages.

“The quite ambitious objective for this year is to make the podium,” Pozzovivo smiled. “But there are a lot of big rivals in the field this year. I’ve only finished in the top five once in my career, so repeating that result would already be something special.”