Mark Cavendish wants to keep on racing for the foreseeable future after once again proving himself at the highest level during the Tour de France.

The 36-year-old won his fourth stage of this year's race on Friday to equal the record of 34 Tour stage wins held by the great Eddy Merckx – continuing a remarkable resurgence since fearing his career was over last winter.

Last week, Deceuninck-QuickStep boss Patrick Lafevere used his newspaper column to say he would speak to the Manxman about a new contract after the Tour, but wrote that Cavendish may see a record-breaking victory on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Sunday, should he achieve it, as the time to say goodbye.

Cavendish's stage wins so far have put him in a commanding position in the Tour's points classification – he leads by 72 points, 279 to 207 from Michael Matthews.

Cavendish was the first British winner of the green jersey when he took it in 2011, prior to Peter Sagan's dominance in the competition, but insisted it remained a secondary target for the final week.

If he can achieve his first goal, however, green will come with it.

"Throughout my whole career the stages take precedent," he said. "The green maybe comes from that, and that's the same now. I didn't plan to come here for green, I came to try to win a sprint stage and it just came as a bonus.

"It would be be beautiful to have it in Paris and if we continue to win sprints we should have it in Paris. It doesn't change the game plan."

Cavendish must survive the mountain stages to come first, a constant battle for sprinters as they race to make the time cut every day.

"You're nervous every day for the time limit but there is nothing we can do about it, we just have to try and get through it as best as possible," he said.

"I don't like to pre-empt how stages are going to go but the toughest ones for us hopefully have passed...

"This has probably been the hardest Tour de France I've ever done but I'm looking forward to the next three days and hopefully we should be OK."