Tour de France stage winner Simon Gerrans will join up with this year's yellow jersey champion Carlos Sastre at the Cervélo team, it was announced on Friday.

The Canadian outfit, which is due to join bike racing's elite in 2009, will not however be managed by Gerrans' fellow Australian, Scott Sunderland. After leaving the highly successful CSC team, which he helped to victories in Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France, Sunderland was all set to take over at Cervélo.

However "differences of opinion" with the team's owners have since prompted the former Aussie pro to reconsider his options. Sunderland told AFP that he is looking into other projects.

Gerrans, 28, meanwhile will join Spanish ace Sastre, who has also left CSC, Norwegian one-day specialist Thor Hushovd, formerly his teammate at Crédit Agricole, and Spanish pair Inigo Cuesta and Xavier Florencio.

Gerrans, Cuesta and Florencio have all signed deals with Cervélo, who have also signed Norwegian Gabriel Rasch and under-21 German champion Martin Reimer.

Earlier this week Cervélo, a manufacturer of top end racing bikes, announced the arrival of Lithuanian Ignatas Konovalovas, 22, Swiss Marcel Wyss, 22, and Spaniard Joaquin Novoa Mendez, 25.

Also joining the team are Germany's Andreas Klier, Belgian Serge Pauwels, New Zealander Hayden Roulston, Irishman Philip Deignan and British duo Daniel Lloyd and Jeremy Hunt.