Tony Martin felt nothing but joy as he finally got his hands on the yellow jersey that had eluded him by a matter of seconds on the previous three days at the Tour de France.

The 30-year-old three-time world time-trial champion made a daring solo attack from a reduced peloton with 3.3km left of Tuesday’s 223.5km cobbled fourth stage and held off the charging pack to win by three seconds.

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That on its own would have been enough to snatch the yellow jersey from 2013 champion Chris Froome’s shoulders but he also took a 10sec time bonus on the line that gives him a 12sec buffer to Froome in the overall standings.

John Degenkolb, the winner of the Paris-Roubaix race whose cobbles were borrowed for this stage, took second with Peter Sagan third.

Martin, 30, had spent the first three days in second place having lost out to Australian Rohan Dennis by five seconds in the opening stage time-trial.

He ended the second stage 3sec behind Fabian Cancellara, who had taken a 4sec bonus on the line for finishing third.

Froome then finished second on the third stage to earn a 6sec bonus that left him just 1sec ahead of Martin.

But his brazen attack after the last treacherous cobbles had been crossed paid off.

It almost didn’t, though, as Martin punctured just before the final cobbled sector and had to borrow team-mate Matteo Trentin’s bike.

After a hectic last 50km, including 11.5km of cobbles across six sectors, the ‘fantastic four’ favourites of Froome, reigning champion Vincenzo Nibali, two-time winner Alberto Contador and Colombian Nairo Quintana all finished in the leading group of around 25 riders.

The big loser on the day, though, was French hope Thibaut Pinot, third overall last year.

He suffered a mechanical problem on the penultimate cobbled sector, had a tantrum and eventually lost around 3min 30sec, leaving him 6min 30sec back in total and with an uphill struggle to compete for a podium finish.

American Tejay Van Garderen is now third overall at 25sec while Contador is still eighth at 48sec now.

Nibali has a 1min 50sec gap to the lead with Quintana at 2min 08sec but the Movistar leader will have been relieved he didn’t lose any more time to Froome.