Despite a rather slow start to 2014 season marked by below-par performances in the individual time trials, Tony Martin has been increasingly impressive within last weeks as the German powerhouse managed to survive mountain stages at the Tour de Suisse to lose the yellow jersey in the last day of competition and once again rode away from all his rivals to claim a victory on ninth stage of the Tour de France.

Despite putting on a huge effort in his trademark solo ride for a stage victory on Saturday, impressively strong Martin managed to recuperate enough to feature in a strong breakaway again yesterday, this time riding for his Omega Pharma-Quick Step leader Michał Kwiatkowski. The German ITT World Champion was the only rider to set the pace in the nine-rider group on a mountainous course until the penultimate climb, but the Polish rider didn’t manage to finish off his work as his chances for a yellow jersey and stage victory faded as quickly as he himself while climbing up the La Planche Des Belles Filles.

“On the day before, Tony said that in this Tour he eventually had good legs for the first time. This was a bad sign for the rest of the field,” Rolf Aldag revealed, according to Radsport-news.

While Martin claims to feel stronger then ever in the mountains in this year’s Tour, but all his strength is meant to be sacrificed for unevenly performing Kwiatkowski, German media started to speculate whether their powerful countryman would stay in the Omega Pharma-Quick Step outfit after his contract expires with the end of the 2014 season.

“Tony is loyal and so he won’t pull things any further,” Aldag added in regards to Omega Pharma-Quick Step sports director Davide Bramati’s words, indicating that despite Martin’s strong performances the young Pole is the only protected rider in the Belgian outfit.

“Kwiatkowski is our captain in the mountains. We now look from one day to another together with team managers on whether anyone gets a go-ahead to ride for himself,” Davide Bramati said.

With Matteo Trentin also eager to fulfill his own ambitions, the atmosphere within the Omega Pharma-Quick Step Tour de France team is rumored not to be perfectly harmonious. Martin himself added some fuel to such suggestions during the post-stage press conference held on Saturday, when he strongly indicated that missing on a victory in the Tour de Suisse general classification was rather due to insufficient team support than a bad day in the mountains.

“The TDS has shown me that I can keep up in the mountains. The fact that I lost the yellow had nothing to do with my condition, but was due to other circumstances,” Martin said.

And according to German media, those “other circumstances” should be read as lack of the team support, tightly knitted around Cavendish and his ambitions.

In such circumstances, the 29-year old German is expected to consider other options before deciding to sign eventual extension of his contract with the Omega Pharma-Quick Step, while Belgian team’s manager Patrick Lefevere emphasizes his huge value for the squad and claims that they would support Martin in pursuing his personal ambitions in the future.

“Tony wins as Eddy Merckx once did,” Lefevere praised the German rider.

“I would like to conclude the negotiations by the end of the Tour,” he added, asked about Martin’s contract extension.

In the same time, German rider’s agent Jörg Werner indicated that Martin received several offers from different directions, all worth being considered before making the final decision.

If Martin decides to continue his road career in the Belgian outfit, it was suggested that some additional clauses would have to be included in his contract, ensuring that he would receive a sufficient support in pursuing his own goals.