The Ardennes classics and the Tour de France will again be the highlights for Rui Costa in his second season as leader of Lampre-Merida. The Portuguese rider had a solid 2014 season but missed out in his key objectives, Amstel Gold Race, Fleche-Wallonne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour de France.

At 28 years of age, Rui Costa is reaching full maturity and goes into the 2015 season with the aim of proving himself as a grand tour contender and underlining his status as one of the best one-day riders in the world. The 2013 world champion has designed his schedule and it will be very similar to the one he had in his first year at Lampre-Merida: Paris-Nice, Vuelta al Pais Vasco, Amstel Gold Race, Fleche Wallone and Liege-Bastogne-Liege will again be on his calendar. He will soon decided where to start his season. According to BiciCiclismo, he will probably do so at the Tour of Oman instead of the Volta ao Algarve. After the Ardennes, he will decide how to best prepare for the Tour de France, according to the Spanish website.

After his second place behind Carlos Betancur in 2014, Paris-Nice will be the first goal for the Portuguese. He will mainly use Pais Vasco to prepare for Amstel, Fleche and Liege. Until now he has been unable to excel in those three races since his debut in 2012 and his best results are 17th, 18th and 9th respectively. In the Tour, he will again focus on the general classicfication after having had to withdraw from the 2014 race due to illness. He has won three stages in the race, one in 2011 and two in 2013.

This year he finished fourth  in the WorldTour. His only disappointment was the Tour de France and the Worlds where he didn't have his best day after having being second in Montreal one week earlier. One week later he was third in Lombardy. With a third place in Algarve, a second place in Paris-Nice and a third place in the Tour de Romandie, he had a great start to the season but he had to wait until the Tour de Suisse before he finally managed to win a race in the rainbow jersey when he won the race for the third year in a row. At the end of the year, he finished fourth in the Tour of Beijing.