In the past season, Rick Zabel (BMC) took his first pro win on the 3rd stage of the Tour of Austria. In what was the highlight of 2015, he put his sprint skills on show like he did in stage 6 where he finished in third place.

Nonetheless, the 21-year-old doesn’t draw an entirely positive balance of his second pro season. “2015 was okay. I think I can be happy even though I would have liked to deliver a few more standout results,” Zabel told radsport-news.com. However, Erik Zabel’s son is sure that a long season with 83 race days and more than 13,000 racing kilometers have helped him develop even further. The racing included 21 days of racing at the Giro d’Italia, his first grand tour which he managed to finish.

The German made other important debuts in France and Hamburg.  In April Zabel did the legendary Paris-Roubaix - the first monument of his young career which he finished in 103rd place. Four months later, he was 19th at the Vattenfall Cyclassics, the only German WorldTour race, in front of his home crowd.

Previously, he had shown his good form in the Eneco Tour "In general, the August was very satisfactory. I also showed good condition and delivered important domestique service in the Eneco Tour,” added Zabel.

With this good shape, he wanted to build on last year’s performance in September’s Tour of Britain where he was in the top 5 twice in 2014. However, he had to abandon on stage one due to illness. "This was very disappointing, I had done a lot to prepare the race," said Zabel who was also disappointed not to get selected for the Tour of Flanders. "In general, I would have liked to have a few more top results.”

The youngster is now hoping for a Ronde debut in the coming year when he goes into his third season at BMC. "I want to develop myself and support our captains when that’s the goal. But of course I also want to achieve some personal results," said Zabel. "I'm young, hungry and want to show what I can do.”