Fabio Jakobsen: "We knew that today would be a day of echelons and we love them"

Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team keep up their strong early season form, and their main sprinter Fabio Jakobsen stormed to yet another win this afternoon at Paris-Nice. It was a complicated day where the strong winds caused alarms to ring all day long, but the Belgian team thrived in their preferred terrain.

“We knew that today would be a day of echelons and we love them, so we were prepared for what was to come. It wasn’t easy and there was a lot of nervousness the entire stage, but we remained confident and very motivated," Jakobsen said after the stage, his sixth win of the season.

After spending the day out in the wind, as expected Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl thrived. In addition to Jakobsen, the team got their three classics riders in the front group. Throughout the day they didn't have to do an extra amount of work, however at the end they had to shut down a couple of moves by Stefan Bissegger who became a threat.

They managed to enter the final kilometer in front though and leadout Jakobsen. Despite Jumbo-Visma almost managing to overcome their leadout, Jakobsen was by far the fastest in the final meter: "Being in four riders meant we could control things at the end, where Yves did a huge pull over the bridge until the last kilometer, then Styby took over and Florian sheltered me until I could launch my sprint."

"I like winning and I’m happy I could take my first victory here and continue this good start to the season," he concluded. Today was his best opportunity and he delivered. Tomorrow at Dun-le-Palestel he will try to go for the stage win again.