Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE) proved that he has not yet given up on his chance to win a third Tour Down Under title when he used his strong team to keep things together for the two intermediate sprints on today's fourth stage of the race. Having taken back 5 seconds, the Australian now has a bit more confidence going into Saturday's queen stage to the top of Willunga Hill which he won last year.

When he found himself with a 12-second deficit to make up, Simon Gerrans could be forgiven for being a little bit uncertain about his chances of winning a record-breaking third Tour Down Under. However, the newly crowned Australian champion showed on today's fourth stage that he has no intention of giving up.

Gerrans clawed back almost half of Cadel Evans’s (BMC) overall lead on stage four of the Santos Tour Down Under, in a crosswind affected stage into Victor Harbor. An impressive team performance from ORICA-GreenEDGE helped to set Gerrans up for the two intermediate sprints, where he picked up five bonus seconds. In the final, Gerrans sprinted to fourth on the stage behind winner Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol), Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto-Belisol) and Elia Viviani (Cannondale).

Despite narrowly missing out on another time bonus for a top three finish, Gerrans retained his second place overall, and is now just seven seconds down on Evans. He will also wear the blue jersey of the points classification leader into stage five.

"Today it went pretty well with the time bonus I was after," he said. "Our plan was to chase the first breakaway if it was within reach before the first intermediate sprint, and if not, we’d target the second. We eventually managed to do both," said Gerrans. I’m pretty happy with that.

Gerrans's only regret was that he narrowly missed out on the bonus seconds at the finish.

"It would have been great to finish one place higher and get more time bonus but a flat bunch sprint finish isn’t my speciality," he said.  "In saying that, we got a couple of seconds out on the road to tighten things up just a little bit more and as I've said time and time again, this race is won by seconds. I'm going to take every opportunity. With two stages to go, the race for the overall win remains wide open. The race is far from won.

"Put it this way - I'm feeling five seconds more confident after today's stage than I was beforehand."

Sports director Matt White described the day's tactics.

“We’re in a lot better situation than we were 24 hours ago,” he said. “We knew we had to take some bonus seconds today, and we ended up taking five out of the possible six available out on the road. The boys rode extremely well. They did a very good lead-out into the first intermediate sprint, and Gerro was able to capitalise on that and take maximum points.”

As predicted, strong winds on the 148.5 kilometre stretch of flat and open road between Unley and Victor Harbor played a major part in the way the race unfolded. Aware of the potentially damaging conditions, ORICA-GreenEDGE spent a nervous day vigilantly controlling the race, and sheltering team leader Gerrans from the wind.

“After the first sprint, we had Mathew Hayman, Michael Matthews and Simon Clarke doing all of the work on the front, to try and bring back the two breakaway riders and give us a shot at taking the second intermediate bonuses," White said. "We were able to take the bunch by surprise, and with the winds in that section, we actually ended up splitting the peloton to pieces in the process.”

With the peloton reduced to about half, Lotto-Belisol and Garmin-Sharp moved to the front to set up their sprinters for the finish in Victor Harbor. ORICA-GreenEDGE also assembled their lead-out train to give Gerrans the best possible run in, but he was narrowly beaten on the line.

“Simon only narrowly missed out on taking third place, and also missed out on the bonus seconds for that," White said. "But he’s obviously in great shape. The guys rode very, very well today and we’re certainly back in the game.”

With a deficit of just seven seconds on the eve of Saturday’s Queen stage around McLaren Vale, a win atop Willunga now looms as Gerrans’s best opportunity to reclaim the Ochre jersey.

“Gerro is feeling confident ahead of Willunga; the past two years he has either won or come second there, so the climb certainly suits him," White said. "I expect to see Cadel, Simon and probably Richie Porte (Sky) battling it out tomorrow. I don’t think it’s a hard enough climb that any of those top guys will be able to distance each other too much, so it’s about the stage win and the overall lead is likely to come down to the bonuses for the win again.

Compared to the Corkscrew climb, the Willunga Hill suits a puncheur like Gerrans better than a climber like Evans.

"At the end of the day, you still have to beat Cadel tomorrow on Willunga, but I think that's doable," he added. "It will come down to speed, it will be good for us. The hardest part of Willunga is at the bottom, but I wouldn't be surprised to see all those top guys come together to the line, or at least very close. 

"The priority tomorrow is to win the stage. Simon is more focused on winning the stage. We're a long from finished with this race. We're on a mission, that's for sure."

Gerrans won the stage to Willunga last year and was only narrowly beaten by Alejandro Valverde in 2012. He is confident ahead of tomorrow's challenge.

"It can definitely be lost on Willunga Hill, but not necessarily won," he said. "It could definitely come down to the final stage on Sunday.

"Cadel really has to get rid of me tomorrow," he added. "I don't think he's going to want to go into the final stage with only a seven-second advantage."

If victory on the popular climb in stage five proves elusive, the team may look beyond tomorrow’s 151.5 kilometre stage and target intermediate sprints on Sunday’s final street circuit stage in Adelaide.

“There’s still time to take back seven seconds in this Tour," White said. "There’s 19 seconds available just on the last stage, and nine of those are through bonus sprints. But ideally we would like to be in the jersey after the stage tomorrow. We’re going to see the best guys battling it out for the stage win tomorrow, and we’re expecting a pretty interesting race. “