Chris Froome has by many been marked out as the man to beat in this year's Tour de France having won almost all stage races he has started this year. The Briton himself points to multiple grand tour winner Alberto Contador as his main rival and still feels that he can be better than he has been so far this year.

Chris Froome has lined up in 4 stage races so far this season and he has been dominant in most of them. While being far from his best form, he won the Tour of Oman in February and then went on to conquer the queen stage in the Tirreno-Adriatico. A bad day on the epic penultimate stage to Porto Sant'Elpidio saw him face his only real defeat so far this year when he lost the overall lead to Vincenzo Nibali and he had to settle for second in the Italian stage race. He bounced back with a dominant win in the Criterium International a couple of weeks later and made his most clear demonstration of power when he crushed the opposition in the Tour de Romandie at the end of April.

Since then Froome has not raced, instead preparing meticulously for the Tour de France, and he will find out how far he has come when he lines up in the Criterium du Dauphiné on Sunday. At the French race, he will get the chance to check out the condition of some of his key Tour rivals as Alberto Contador, Jurgen Van Den Broeck, Alejandro Valverde, Joaquin Rodriguez and Pierre Rolland are all scheduled to race in the Alps next week.

Despite the numerous rivals, Froome has told The Evening Standard in an interview that the man he fears most is Alberto Contador. The Spaniard beat Froome in last year's Vuelta in his first grand tour after his suspension and the Briton knows that the Saxo-Tinkoff rider has a wealth of experience, having won 5 grand tours in the past (and has lost a further two victories due to his suspension).

“He knows what he’s doing, he’s won a lot of Grand Tours," he said of Contador. "He’ll be hidden away in Spain somewhere riding himself into form, I’m sure."

Despite his blistering form early in the season, Froome warns his rival that there is still more to come.

“I don’t feel like I’ve hit my best form yet. It’s been good but not like I’ve been absolutely flying yet,” he said. “I feel on the rise but I’ve still got a few weeks to the Tour, there’s still headroom.”

Much has been said about the leadership at Team Sky. Froome was the designated leader for the Tour but defending champion Bradley Wiggins has given plenty of indications that he aims to defend his title. The discussion has only been even more tricky after Wiggins was forced to leave the Giro early due to illness, thus being left with the Tour as his final and only season objective.

Froome acknowledges that it is only natural for the press to write about the possible rivalry, given last year's dramatic Tour where Froome had to sacrifice himself for Wiggins despite being clearly the strongest in the mountains.

“I don’t enjoy the specific talk, the he says, he says stuff," he explained. "But given the territory and what we’re doing it’s understandable and it’s great to see so much interest.”

“Who knows on Brad," he said of Wiggins' Tour ambitions. "It depends on how he pulls out of it. It comes down to a management decision and what job they see him doing. We’re definitely going to have a pretty strong team regardless.”

At last year's race, Team Sky appeared to be in a league of their own as they took stepped onto the two top steps of the podium and took no less than 6 stage wins in the process. Froome admitted that much had gone their way but expects a much tougher race this year.

“I think people were a little bit deluded by how easy it was last year,” he says. “People are talking about how we can choose who will win this year, that first and second is guaranteed. Last year, we had it easy in terms of competition and in terms of luck. Things went our way and it’ll be interesting to see what happens when things don’t go our way."

“The Tour’s a very stressful place, particularly those opening days trying to stay out of trouble. It’s the race with the best riders in the world, the pace is much faster, everyone pushing themselves that much harder. And then there’s no recovery time with all the media attention.”

Before Froome gets to the start line in Corsica, he will tackle the Criterium du Dauphine where he hopes to make it three Sky wins in a row after Wiggins' 2011 and 2012 triumphs. And after the Tour, he hopes to perform well in this year's world championships on the tough course in Florence.

The season is far from over for Froome. Actually, it's only really kicking off in earnest now.