Team Europcar enter tomorrow's Milan-Sanremo with Thomas Voeckler and Sebastien Turgot in a dual leadership role. Both have previous top 5 performances in monuments, and the team hopes that harsh weather will make it possible to reproduce those kind of efforts in Sanremo.

Europcar was a somewhat surprise inclusion when the wild cards for Milan-Sanremo were handed out. As a French team, the team has no history of doing plenty of Italian races, but they held off a number of other contenders to get one of the coveted slots on the start line.

The team will look to Thomas Voeckler and Sebastien Turgot to justify their inclusion in the race. With Voeckler ending up 5th in last year's Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Turgot stepping onto the podium in the most recent edition of Paris-Roubaix, both have shown the ability to handle long distances which is of immense importance in the season's longest one-day race.

Voeckler was not at his best in Paris-Nice, and with his focus firmly on the Ardennes classics he will not enter the race at his peak. His aggressive style of racing should, however, make his presence felt when we enter the final climbs of the race.

On the other hand, Turgot will try to keep his powder dry for an eventual sprint finish. With his favourite races in Belgium and Northern France looming on the horizon, he is close to his best level, and he will hope to remain in contention when the peloton descends the Poggio climb towards the end of the race.

With bad weather expected, many riders fear an epic, extremely hard edition of the race. However, the Europcar team is in the opposite state of mind and greet the rain as a welcome addition to the race.

"It is a very tough race," sports director Sebastien Joly said. "As if the 300km were not enough in itself, the weather is terrible in Italy. The weather could decide La Primavera. The rain? This is not a problem for us. Andy (Flickinger, second sports director for the race, ed.)and I talked about this with the riders, and according to them, the rain and cold will make a drastic selection before the finish line. Some of our men are accustomed to harsh climatic conditions, so it is almost a bonus! "

"Sébastien Turgot and Thomas Voeckler are our two protected riders in this race," Joly added. *We have two cards to play with two different sets of capabilities. If those two are in the final, I think other riders will need to fear them. Thomas has enough strength to do something."

"Milan-Sanremo is a relatively simple race. The length and the climate are the real difficulties. riders. We can make the race hard. This is our real opportunity."

Voeckler and Turgot will be joined by Jerome Cousin, Yohann Gene, Vincent Jerome, Davide Malacarne, Björn Thurau and David Veilleux on the start line in Milan.

You can follow Team Europcar's exploits live on CyclingQuotes.com/live on Sunday starting at 14.30. Until then you can prepare for the race by studying our preview.

Team Europcar for Milan-Sanremo

Thomas Voeckler, Sebastien Turgot, Jerome Cousin, Vincent Jerome, Yohann Gene, Davide Malacarne, Björn Thurau and David Veilleux