Since joining Movistar from Tinkoff-Saxo, Rory Sutherland has changed his focus from getting personal results to becoming a great domestique. When asked by Cyclingnews what his goals were for the season, he says he is happy if Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana have had good seasons.

“For me it's different because I'll be 34 years old next year, and I think I've found something, here, a specific job which I feel is needed and respected. And for me, at my age, I think that is more important than money or anything else, that you are in a happy situation in a job that people respect you for doing.”

“I've seen enough for so many years; you have to be realistic. [You can say] ‘I'm not going win this, I'm not going to win that,' I can win races, but it's better to put the eggs in someone else's basket, like Nairo [Quintana] or Alejandro [Valverde] or any of the other guys. Us together have a better chance of winning than me trying by myself and them trying by themselves. I've worked a lot with Alejandro this year, and we have a really good working relationship and friendship, we seem to be pretty comfortable. I'm learning more and more about what he wants and where he wants to be in the peloton, it seems to work pretty well. So honestly, if he's had another good year, then I'm happy. It's pretty simple.”

In short, whatever goals the Movistar Team general manager Eusebio Unzue sets out for the 2016 season, Sutherland automatically assumes those goals as his own.

For now, Sutherland says he isn’t too sure of his schedule for 2016, as he can ride virtually any race on the calendar in support of whoever the team sends there as leader. He is going to start back home at the Tour Down Under and he is almost certain he will be at the Ardennes Classics. After that, it depends on what Movistar leader needs him as a domestique.

“It's kind of up in the air at the moment. We get the opportunity to ask Eusebio about races, and I make [the Movistar management] laugh a bit because they give you a piece of paper with the races on it and ask you to circle what you want. Then I give it back to them, and I say, well, ‘I can do all of these races, it's more a question of where do I fit into your plan.' And where I fit in with that plan, that is completely fine with me.”

Sutherland says that racing on Spanish teams is good as they are very open, although Movistar is hard to crack as the riders all speak Spanish, but he says he is coming along with the language well and is getting more fluent.

“It's good because the Spanish people as a whole are very open and accepting. [But] this team specifically is probably a lot more difficult to crack into than other teams, because even if they are so much more open, it's a closed environment because of the language. A majority are Spanish, and a lot of the others are Italians who speak Spanish, too. But my Spanish is getting better every year, and the atmosphere in the team is one I really like and enjoy. That helps you fit in, whether you're Australian or from the States or wherever.”

Sutherland says that his job is just to ride on the front from the beginning of the race and to look after his team leader and keep them safe and well fed before delivering them to the front for the finale.

“I said it to Eusebio [Unzue] in the Vuelta, it's the same for me as it is for Imanol [Erviti]: both of us ride on the front from kilometre zero. I don't mind, that's my job and I'll do that and I'll do that happily. With Alejandro, I think he enjoys my wheel in terms of the safety of it. I don't put him in places that he doesn't want to go and when it's crunch time I make sure that he's there. He doesn't need to worry, he can just sit there and think about the finale.”

“Whenever we're all together in the bunch, the teams are all lined up, and he or Nairo sits on my wheel because I'm bigger, I'm smoother, I don't change pace a lot, and I think about them. If I grab a musette at the feed zone, I'll tell Alejandro, 'I'll get it, you don't need to worry about it' - to worry about the risk of crashes going for a musette or whatever.”