Lampre lost a few important riders this winter to their competitors. It remains to be seen if the new signings will be able to fill the gap that is left. Top sprinter Bennati didn’t feel like extending his contract, so he went to rivals Liquigas for a few extra Euros and took Corioni with him. Team manager Saronni responded by contracting third choice sprinter Lorenzetto of Milram. With a free role, the Italian should be able to get to a higher level. At Lampre, he will only have to accept Napolitano above him, when it comes to sprinting.


In the same age category Lampre also contracted the Czech Pelánek and Bindi and the even older (30 in may) Murro. Bandiera, who comes from the same town as Ballan, was convincing during his traineeship last year, especially in the tour of Portugal, where he got several good results. The fame of Simon Spilak is spreading fast. The general audience got to know him as the main contender of Mollema in the Tour de l’Avenir and by now he has confirmed his talent in Paris-Nice and the Flemish spring races. Except for the talented threesome Lorenzetto, Spilak and Bandiera, the transfer policy has however been quite poor.


And this all at a time when, next to the mentioned Bennati and Corioni, also useful riders like Franzoi, Stangelj and Valjavec have left the team. Not so much the top riders, but they did have the experience and abilities to play an important role deep into a races finale. Besides that, they were, together with the declared innocent doping victim Caruso and the retired Figueras, also good supporters for the grand tour ambitions of ‘Il Piccolo Principe’, Damiano Cunego.


Not all is lost this year for Lampre. With Ballan, Cunego, Napolitano and a liberated Lorenzetto, Saronni has quite a nice quartet of key riders. But nonetheless the team is manoeuvering itself from a team with multiple captains (as in the days with Simoni, Bennati, Cunego) to a strong team, built around one captain.


Around Cunego there still is a strong block with Bruseghin, Vila, Tiralongo, Smyd and Fornaciari, but combined with his full racing schedule, these strong riders will always have to be used as supporting team mate. Since the young talents like Bono, Possoni (left to High Road), Gavazzi and Longo didn’t show much progress last year, they can consider themselves lucky that Spilak made the transition so easily because turtle-shelled Lampre could easily turn out to have a very weak interior.


In
Marco Bandiera (neo), Emanuele Bindi (Universal Caffe), Mirco Lorenzetto (Team Milram), Christian Murro (Team Tenax), Lubos Pelānek (AC Sparta Praha), Simon Spilak (Adria Mobil)


Out
Daniele Bennati, Claudio Corioni, Enrico Franzoi (Liquigas), Giampaolo Caruso (no team), Jaime Castaneda (UNE Orbitel), Giuliano Figueras, Gorazd Stangelj (retired), Tadej Valjavec (AG2R La Mondiale), Morris Possoni (High Road)