“Details” will mark the difference between success or failure in tomorrow’s Milan-San Remo, says Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-QuickStep).

The 2005 world road race champion has never won la Primavera but has shown impressive early season form, winning the Tour of Qatar for a fourth time in February and picking up a stage win in last week’s Paris-Nice.

“Everything can go right and everything can go wrong. It’s a race where you really need to be anxious of the details all day long. The details make the difference in the end. I hope I have the experience now to do a good result. I hope now I will have the luck a little bit on my side, then I won’t be very far from victory,” he said.

Boonen’s Classic palmares include three victories in Paris-Roubaix, two in the Ronde Van Vlaanderen, and two in Gent Wevelgem, but the Belgian has never won Milan-San Remo.

“My ideal scenario is crossing the finish line first,” Boonen said about tomorrow’s race. “The way I’d like to do it is not really important. I’ve been there only a few times. Milan-San Remo is always a nervous race which ends up in a field sprint every time. But the ideal scenario is when you win.”

He described the last two Milan-San Remos as “very hard races’ and said he had forecasts of rain for tomorrow’s seven hour, 298km epic from Italy’s second city to the San Remo coast.

Boonen was speaking at an event to promote the Specialized Venge McLaren, a bike he described as perfect for him. “It saves you about 25 watts which is pretty huge, especially on long stages like Milan-San Remo,” he claimed. “Seven hours on the bike, if you save as much energy as possible it will give you extra speed on the finish.”