Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) almost sealed the overall win in the Tour of Qatar with a solid 5th in today's time trial but the Dutchman will have to stay aware tomorrow if he wants to bring home the overall win. A short, fast stage with a strong cross-tailwind has all the ingredients to turn into a true carnage and there is a great chance that we will see another shake-up of the GC. Starting at 12.45 CET, you can follow the drama on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

The course

The riders will be back to fight potential crosswinds on the fourth stage which is almost a reversal of the opening one. This time the riders will head out from the stage 1 finish in Dukhan on the west coast before heading south along the coast as they start their 135km journey.

After 24km, they will make a left-hand turn to head across the peninsula - contesting two intermediate sprints along the way - with only a few slight changes in direction along the way. They will mostly follow the same road as they did on stage one, albeit in the opposite direction. Just after the feed zone, they will deviate from that pattern as they head straight to the city of Al Wakra which was the starting site for the opening stage.

Having reached the coast, they will again turn right to head down the coast to the finish in Mesaieed. 2.5km from the finish, they will turn left in a roundabout to travel in a predominantly western direction for the final part of the stage. They will go straight through a roundabout 1.7km from the finish and from there is a dead flat and straight road all the way to the finish.

Mesaieed has hosted four stage finishes in the past. A young Greg Van Avermaet took the first one in 2007 from a breakaway while Tom Boonen won a bunch sprint in 2010. In 2011, Heinrich Haussler took the win on a windy day while Mark Cavendish came out on top in last year's bunch sprint.

The weather

The conditions in Qatar are rather identical these days as nothing changes from day to day. However, there is no reason to regret this fact as the second stage produced some fantastic racing and we could very well see a similar scenario tomorrow.

It will be another very sunny day, with the temperature reaching its usual maximum at around 18 degrees at the midpoint of the day. Again the wind will come from a northwestern direction but it will be stronger than it was on stage 2 and will even pick up a bit as the day goes on.

The most feared wind direction is a cross-tailwind and that is what the riders will have for almost the entire stage. That will be the case until the feed zone where there will be a short tailwind section. It is followed by a section with direct crosswind and that will be the conditions until the 2.5km to go mark. Having turned right in the roundabout, it will be a cross-headwind all the way to the line.

The favourites

Sitting comfortably at the top of the leader board and being surrounded by the - by far - strongest team in the race, Niki Terpstra appears to have almost sealed the overall win. With Omega Pharma-Quick Step being the ones to take the initiative whenever there has been a crosswind section, it is hard to imagine that anyone will be able to put Terpstra into difficulty. No one has a realistic chance of closing their deficit solely by virtue of bonus seconds and so the main objective for Omega Pharma-Quick Step will now be to bring Terpstra safely to the finish in Doha.

However, the Belgian team will be hungry for more and would love to move Tom Boonen into 2nd as well as score a few more stage wins. In general, the best way to defend yourself in the crosswind is to attack and with tomorrow's conditions offering the perfect conditions to do so, we can again expect Omega Pharma-Quick Step to shatter the peloton to pieces. With the wind being a cross-tailwind for most of the stage, it will be a very fast and extremely nervous stage that can only be described by one word: carnage.

The main selection is likely to happen very early in the stage and from there it will be a pursuit between the different groups that will have formed. As it was the case in stage 2, it will be necessary to ride hard all the way to the finish to maintain an advantage and this means that it will be very hard stage. The racing will take its toll and when the battle for the stage win starts in the front group, we should be for an exciting race where several riders could easily fall off the pace.

On stage 2, the entire Omega Pharma-Quick Step team made the front echelon and this could easily be the case again tomorrow. The Belgian team will certainly be the team to beat but our guess is that it will now the time for Lotto Belisol to shine.

We were pretty surprised to see André Greipel be missing from the front group on stage 2 and there is little doubt that he was extremely disappointed. The big German is rarely too far away from his trusted lead-out men Jurgen Roelandts and Marcel Sieberg who both made the split. As he is obviously in great condition and usually excels in this kind of racing, we are still wondering how he could suddenly find himself in the second group.

Greipel will be eager to take his revenge and we doubt that Omega Pharma-Quick Step will be able to get rid of him twice in a row. By making it into that select lead group, Roelandts and Sieberg proved that they are up for the challenge and tomorrow they will have Greipel glued to their wheel. As a sprinter, he has all the capabilities to produce that short, intense effort that is needed to be in the front group and tomorrow he should be there.

There is no doubt that Greipel is the fastest rider in the peloton and he is likely to have the added advantage of having Sieberg and Roelandts at his side. Both play a key role in what is the best lead-out train in the world, with Sieberg proving his abilities to lead Roelandts out at the end of stage 2. Even if the sprint is unlikely to be a true bunch sprint, that combination is hard to beat and Greipel will have all the cards on his hand if he makes the split. The main challenge will be to keep things together for a sprint in the finale but with Omega Pharma-Quick Step likely to have strength in numbers, they could have an ally in their quest to take Greipel's first ever win in Qatar.

Barring accident, Tom Boonen is guaranteed to make the split and as he again proved on stage 2, he is very hard to beat in a sprint at the end of a hard race. If Greipel is absent from the front group, Boonen will be the man to beat and he could very well take his 22nd Qatar stage win tomorrow. He even has a solid chance of beating Greipel in a sprint. In a usual bunch sprint, that would be close to impossible but a sprint coming at the end of a couple of hours of hard riding in the wind is very different from the armchair ride the sprinters usually have in a traditional sprint stage. This will only be an advantage for Boonen who will try to make the race as hard as possible.

However, Omega Pharma-Quick Step may play their cards a bit differently tomorrow. On stage 2, they were keen to have a sprint finish but if Greipel makes the selection, they may want to go on the attack. As they are likely to have strength in numbers, they could send riders up the road, with Boonen's sprint being the back-up plan. This makes it less likely that Boonen will come away with the win but it would be unwise to bet against another win for Mr. Qatar.

In our previous previews, we had selected Aidis Kruopis as our joker and the Lithuanian proved us right on stage 2. As one of only very few pure sprinters, the Lithuanian made the split but was extremely unlucky to suffer a puncture just 4km from the line.

In his first year with Orica-GreenEDGE, Kruopis already proved that he is an excellent rider in the windy desert conditions and he is obviously in very good form. With a strong and confident team to support him, there is a great chance that he will be there again and in a direct sprint, he should actually be faster than Boonen. Things may be slightly different at the end of a very hard stage but Kruopis has a solid chance of making it two in a row for Orica-GreenEDGE.

Another pure sprinter who is in excellent condition is Barry Markus. The young Dutchman has got his career as a Belkin rider off to a strong start. On stage 1, only Boonen was faster than him in the sprint for 6th and on stage 2 he narrowly missed the split, finding himself in the second group.

His teammates Robert Wagner and Lars Boom were both in the front group while he was with Maarten Tjallingii and Jos Van Emden in the second one. Belkin is clearly one of the strongest teams for this kind of racing and there is a great chance that Markus will make the split tomorrow with a couple of teammates at his side. He has a very high top speed but usually gets boxed in in the big bunch sprints. That is less likely to happen in a sprint from a much smaller group and so he will be a danger man tomorrow.

FDJ had an unusual amount of bad luck on stage 2 when most of their riders hit the deck. However, the team has actually gathered a rather strong classics team that will be eager to take their revenge and they have one of the fastest sprinters to finish it off. On Monday, their bad luck meant that they had no one in the first group, with Mickael Delage and Arnaud Demare being their only riders in the second one. With better luck, they can do much better than that and they will try do so when things split tomorrow.

Against the likes of Omega Pharma-Quick Step, they are a bit overmatched but it is certainly not impossible for them to put Demare into the front group and if that happens, Boonen and Greipel will have to stay aware. Demare is one of the select few that has the speed to beat them and with his lead-out man Delage also showing great condition, the pair could give FDJ their second win of the season.

Until now, we have shown Alexander Kristoff plenty of confidence but a crash on stage 1 has denied the Norwegian the chance to show his cards. When he arrived in Qatar, he was in a good condition and he will be eager to put it to use. His Katusha team may not be the strongest for this kind of racing but the Norwegian himself is hard to drop in the crosswinds. As we have stated several times, he is one of the best sprinters at the end of a hard race and this will make him a danger man if the race evolves into a true war. With limited team support, it will be hard for him to make the selection but he is one of the select few who has the speed to actually win the stage.

Finally, we will select out joker. Daniele Bennati got his race off to a bad start after claiming that his condition was rather good but his legs have now started to come around. On stage 2 he made it into the front group and today he showed that we had a good reason to select him as a joker when he finished 3rd in the time trial.

In the sprint on stage 2, the team decided to give Michael Mørkøv a go as the Dane still had a shot at the overall podium. After his poor time trial today, Mørkøv is no longer in podium contention and this means that the main focus will now be a stage win. Tinkoff-Saxo is one of the strongest teams for crosswinds racing as they proved by having 5 riders in the front group on stage 2 and Bennati is likely to again make the split. Neither Mørkøv nor Matti Breschel is fast enough to beat Boonen and Greipel but Bennati certainly is. It is not a certainty that the team will play their Italian card in the sprint but their best chance of taking a stage win is certainly to use their fastest sprinter.

CyclingQuotes' stage winner pick: André Greipel

Other winner candidates: Tom Boonen, Aidis Kruopis

Outsiders: Barry Markus, Arnaud Demare, Alexander Kristoff

Joker: Daniele Bennati