New Quick-Step addition Max Schachmann gets Remco Evenepoel's coach and wants to help him to Tour de France podium - I will undoubtedly do things differently here"

Max Schachmann was part of Soudal - Quick-Step during the early years of his career but moved on to (the now named) Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe where he's achieved the best successes of his career. However over the past years things turned sour and the German did not like it. He's now back to the Belgian team with high ambitions and a few negative words over his past team.

"It was already clear to me two years ago that it was difficult to continue there, I needed something else. It's nice that Red Bull came in, but that doesn't change a team, only the name. The people at the helm are still the same," Schachmann said in an interview with In de Leiderstrui.

"I haven't had my best time there in recent years and that was due to various problems. I probably made mistakes, but in my eyes they were certainly made by them. It was not a good collaboration and then you can't expect good results. That's why I wanted to leave". Schachmann won the 2020 and 2021 Paris-Nice and won stages at Itzulia Basque Country, Volta a Catalunya and the national championships twice. However since the summer of 2021 he won only once, at the low-level Sibiu Tour 2023.

It's a Schachmann of a different caliber, but he sees that Quick-Step want to use him as a leader. He's scheduled to start his season at the Volta ao Algarve and will then return to Paris-Nice where he's been very happy in the past. Then follows Milano-Sanremo, all of the Ardennes classics and Eschborn-Frankfurt where he could take an important World Tour win in his home country. "For me it has to be a hard race, because I do not get tired quickly. My sprint at the end of a race is the same as at the start. That is my strength. The team has scheduled me to win races and that confidence in me feels good".

"It's mentally easier to be in an environment where people believe in you one hundred percent. If people don't have confidence in you, you notice that. Here they believe in me and now it's up to me," Schachmann says, hinting also at the lack of this feeling with BORA. "I've seen many teams over the years, but this one never changes much. It's about the high-quality staff, together with the enthusiasm for cycling, which you feel here at all levels".

He admits that this year he's had some periods of good form (a smart tactic move saw him then grab the wheels of Pogacar and Narváez on the Giro's first day, where he sprinted to third in the chase for the pink jersey, ed.) but then it was the lack of luck that saw him down the charts, including catching rain at the Olympic Games and falling at the start of the Tour de Polgone. "I was never bad and I was happy with my legs, but sometimes a little more luck can make a big difference".

Now, he teams up with Koen Pelgrim, Remco Evenepoel's coach, who may be a key part in his return to the top level. "I will undoubtedly do things differently here, to start with we train here in groups. The dynamics are so different from Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. In the past six years I have done a lot of other things and Koen has made a study of that," he adds. "We are going to implement my experiences in the data that he sees, although we will not do exactly the same as seven years ago. But Koen will put his signature on it".

After the spring, he eyes a very specific race. "I want to win again and be part of the Tour de France selection is also a dream, together with the strongest Remco Evenepoel we have ever seen. Hopefully we will reach the podium in Paris again. I just want to have another good year and not regret anything at the end of the season. Sometimes that yields more results and sometimes less, but it will be important that I feel that I have done things well, also for the team".