The Tour de France champion Alberto Contador will leave the Astana team at the end of this season after rejecting the team's offer to extend his contract.
The Spaniard said in a statement he will now study all of his options for the coming seasons. "Although the position of both parties was not so far from each other, the team wanted to know urgently whether or not he would renew his contract", said Contador's press officer. "Alberto Contador has rejected the ultimatum of Astana," the statement continued, adding that the Kazakh-funded team had expected a decision by Tuesday at the latest.
The statement concluded: "After winning the 2010 Tour de France, Alberto Contador wants to have time to calmly explore all possibilities available to him to ride during the coming seasons, but so far none has been excluded."
He is being linked with a new team possibly being formed by the two-times Formula One champion and fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso.
Contador claimed his first Tour triumph with the Discovery Channel team in 2007 but was unable to defend the title after Astana were banned from the race following a year of doping controversies. It was the second time he had been at a team banned from Le Tour.
His Liberty Seguros team were left out of the 2006 Tour after a number of their riders were embroiled in the Operación Puerto scandal. Contador was later cleared by the UCI, but his involvement with the Spanish team meant he was not allowed to ride at the Tour.
He joined Astana in October 2007, initially on a two-year deal, after the Discovery Channel team pulled out of cycling and enjoyed a highly-successful three-year stint with the team, winning the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España in 2008 and a further two Tours in 2009 and 2010.