Evans fine tuning Tour bid

The eight-day French stage race is a traditional pre-Tour event and Evans will lead a strong group of contenders.

Italian Ivan Basso, Dutchman Robert Gesink, Sammy Sanchez of Spain and young Belgian star Juergen van den Broeck will also be in the field as they finalise their Tour build-ups.

Evans finished runner up at Dauphine from 2007-09 and has had a great season so far, winning Tirreno Adriatico and the Tour of Romandie.

The 2009 world champion made it clear that Dauphine is not a goal in itself, but rather a chance to assess how his campaign for the July Tour de France is progressing.

"I've been doing a lot of testing with new equipment, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it works and what improvements I need to make with my training and the new equipment," Evans said.

"It will be an interesting race to assess my form and that of other riders who were not on the Giro (d'Italia).

"I'm not going there with great expectations. It is a test, not an objective."

Dauphine is particularly important for Tour contenders this year because the stage-three individual time trial at Grenoble will be the same course for the only individual time trial during the July race.

That Tour de France time trial is the second-last stage and so it could be critical to overall contenders such as Evans.

"Obviously, depending on how the race goes, I could get carried away as it happened to me in the past already," Evans said.

"I like this race and its mountains, but I didn't check out all the stages in detail.

"All I know is that there are several mountain top finishes, which I will probably like.

"The most important test for me will be the Grenoble time trial because it's the same as the one on the Tour de France."

Dauphine will also be tough, with four mountain-top finishes.

It opens on Sunday night with a short prologue time trial, where Evans is expected to be among the top finishers.

Defending Tour de France champion Alberto Contador of Spain won the Giro and will now aim for a rare Giro-Tour double in the same year.

Evans finished second by less than a minute at the 2007 and '08 Tours de France.

And while Contador and last year's runner-up Andy Schleck are the Tour favourites this year, Evans will be high among the contenders if he can maintain his strong early-season form.