In-form Ian Stannard heralded a long-awaited breakthrough for Team Sky in Flemish classics with his victory in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad last month, after their ill-fated spring campaigns in previous seasons. However, despite big efforts from the powerful Briton, Dwars door Vlaanderen didn’t turn out equally successful and, slightly disappointed, he wishes to bounce back on more demanding parcours in E3 Harelbeke tomorrow.

Stannard finished fifteenth in the peloton consisting of about fifty riders, but wasn’t hugely concerned about the result as Dwars door Vlaanderen was treated rather as a build-up event ahead of major goals coming next month than an objective itself for the 26-year old Briton.

"I was just that little bit out of position," Stannard told Team Sky sports director just after crossing the finish line in Waregem, apparently without regrets.

Even though Team Sky classics rider experienced a badly timed puncture just at the bottom of Oude Kwaremont, he still managed to battle for a good position and set the hard tempo at the front of the leading group. He was, however, unable to match the pace of Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) when the Dutchman accelerated on the Paterberg and lamented over a lack of cohesion in the reduced peloton when the race came to its conclusion.

"It was alright, it wasn't too hard of a race, you could tell that from the size of the group at the end and everyone was still quite fresh," Stannard told Cyclingnews.

"But when Niki got away, people really couldn't decide whether to chase and then how hard to chase, and that was it."

Claiming that the route wasn’t selective enough to make a real selection, Stannard pointed out to mentioned indecisiveness of the main favorites and infallible tactics implemented by Omega Pharma-Quick Step riders, effectively annihilating attempts to chase Terpstra.

"When you had so many QuickStep guys there, everybody knew that if you pulled it back another one of them would attack," he explained. Indeed, the finale's one concerted chase group, which included Stijn Devolder and Alejandro Valverde, was doomed by the marking of Gert Steegmans.

Once again emphasizing that the race wasn’t tough enough to make a real use of his strength, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad champion hopes for a better result in tomorrow’s E3 Harelbeke providing riders with undeniably more demanding parcours, where he will rejoin forces with returning after a short rest period Geraint Thomas.

"I wanted to try and come here and do well, but it wasn't really tough enough so I'm a bit disappointed," Stannard said of his outing in Waregem.

"But I felt good, so there are good signs."

"Gent-Wevelgem's usually a bunch sprint, whereas Harelbeke's obviously a lot harder a race and we've got a strong team for that," Stannard said.

"Hopefully we'll be able to do something there."

Asked about the decision to skip Milano-Sanremo this year after a very promising top ten result obtained last season, Stannard explained it was a matter of picking the priorities more knowingly this time around, as he decided to focus exclusively on cobbled classics in 2014.

"It's always difficult because it's such a big block of racing around here," he said.

"If I'd raced in San Remo, then I probably wouldn't have raced today and I certainly wouldn't have been great today, so it's about getting it right. I preferred to come to Belgium and do this race, to try and familiarise myself with the roads again."