The Astana Qazaqstan team have only had a handful of opportunities to hone their lead-out formation for Mark Cavendish in competition but in Wednesday's Scheldeprijs the team showed more positive signs by delivering the British Champion to a podium place.
In a year where Cavendish is aiming to break one of the most prestigious records in cycling - the most Tour de France stage wins - his result gave him the outright record for most Scheldeprijs podiums.
Of the eight times Cavendish has started the race since 2007, he's landed on the podium seven times, three times as winner. He was previously tied with Belgian Ernest Sterckx who had six podiums between 1946 and 1954 and is two shy of tying Marcel Kittel for most victories.
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"It's nice. Like always if it's another record - you just want to do the best as you can when you can," Cavendish said in the post-race interview before emphasising how long he's been at it.
"We have a young guy in the team Gleb Syritsa - he's a sprinter - we said to him how old were you in 2007? He's like, 'six'. He was six when I won my first Scheldeprijs. Now we're racing together... It's pretty mad how the time goes."
Time may have passed but it was the Cavendish of old who came out to play in Schoten on Wednesday. The 37-year-old wasn't afraid to throw a few elbows making his way to the front in Schoten and produced a powerful sprint that almost gave him a fourth victory in the ProSeries event nicknamed the 'sprinters' world championships'. Only Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Sam Welsford (Team DSM), who burst through a narrow gap and grabbed the top two spots, were quicker.
"I went to follow Edward Theuns, but I had to fight with Dylan Groenewegen a bit, so I was in the wind already at 450 metres to go. So, I had to go very long from where I normally wanted to go - at 250 meters to go if you are well sheltered. And then Jasper came with such a speed," Cavendish remarked.
Cavendish seemed pleased with the podium but was more impressed by the work of his team, echoing comments he made after his first outing with the team in the Tour of Oman.
"It was quite a nice podium to be on with Jasper and Sam, and again I can take positives from how we rode as a team and how we did the sprint," Cavendish said in the post-race interview.
Astana might have lacked the well-oiled dominance of his former QuickStep team, but Astana succeeded in getting Cavendish to the front for a particularly messy bunch sprint. Soudal-QuickStep and Lotto-Dstny, working for Fabio Jakobsen and Caleb Ewan, respectively, were not so lucky.
"We knew everyone would be fresh in the final and it would be dangerous," Cavendish said. "That's why you saw we took it up quite early to try and stay at the front. It's better to be there and be safe rather than to be trying to do a lead-out at the end.
"I think more than the results it's about getting the team working together getting them into the depths of the sprints. As you can see the guys were pretty spot on, pretty superb.
"Scheldeprijs can go one of two ways - you either nail it or you lose everything. I think QuickStep and Lotto you saw today - they were the dominant guys over the majority of the race and then you can just lose it so much in the final. You have to have a bit of luck. I'm happy we had luck today."
The result, together with a podium on stage 1 of the UAE Tour, shows that Cavendish cannot be counted out when it comes to the Tour de France in July, where he aims to break the all-time record for stage wins, eclipsing Eddy Merckx's mark of 34 that he tied in 2021.
It's also a sign that the last-minute transfer to Astana - which came after his prospective deal with the Pineau brothers and their aims at bringing the now-defunct B&B Hotels team to the WorldTour fell through - is not a dead-end road.
When asked what the Scheldeprijs podium says about his chances for taking the Tour de France record, Cavendish refused to speculate. "It's always nice for a result, but it doesn't have a bearing on how we'll be going in July."
The next steps toward his Tour de France ambitions come with next week's Giro di Sicilia, he said, and then onto the Giro d'Italia - "normally" - where he won a stage last year.
