Davis Phinney probably summed it up best when he wrote on twitter:

" stg7 my take; Astana controls stage perfectly but AC goes rogue at the end. Note to Alberto; there' s no ' I' in ' T-E-A-M' ..."

And VeloNews confirmed the rumors that were swirling around the Tour de France today after Alberto Contador failed to follow team orders and left his teammates in the dust about 2K from the finish line.

“ There were no instructions from the car (to attack), ” said Astana team boss Johan Bruyneel. “ We wanted to try to maintain our collective strength and wait for the attacks to come. Those attacks didn’t come. ”

VeleNews goes on to report that:

"Yet Bruyneel was putting the brakes on the Astana train, even with Cancellara flagging off the back, because it’s too early in the race to have to carry the weight of the yellow jersey all the way to the Alps.

The Belgian director was telling the troops to ease the pace and allow Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r) to stay clear from the all-day breakaway and snag the maillot jaune instead.

But Contador had his own plan."

And unfortunately for Contador that plan didn' t include the rest of Team Astana.

Lance Armstrong perhaps summed it in hos own way when he said, " It wasn’t really to the plan, I didn’t expect him to go with the plan, so that was no surprise.”

But you can' t win the Tour de France on your own...no matter how talented, fast, or lucky you maybe.

Axel Merkxx knows this all too well and he put it this way: " Here are my thoughts. Congrats to Felliu and Nocentini! Contador made sure he passed Lance in GC, to win the tour you need teammates..."

So the question now that everybody is asking is just how many teammates can Alberto Contador count on in the weeks to come, and of course how many teammates can Lance Armstrong count on as the going gets tough?

Today, when it really mattered, Contador went rouge and Armstrong stayed with the team.

You do the math.

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