"It's more of a Jay Vine climb than a Rohan Dennis climb," new race leader Rohan Dennis said of the Corkscrew Road climb, the final climb of the Santos Tour Down Under stage 3 (Friday, 116.8km).

Adelaide-raised Jumbo Visma won the second stage from a five-man strong breakaway and wore the race leader's ochre jersey, but Jay Vine finished second, leaving the UAE Team Emirates rider just three seconds behind Dennis in the GC standings.

"Tomorrow is a big day. Let's see how Jay climbs," Dennis told reporters after his podium finish on Thursday.

"As you saw today, he [Vine] was pretty strong and pushing the braking as hard as he could.

"I'm going to watch him without too much stress. If I do get a gap on him, I have a little bit of time off the lead, but I don't want to give him too much time.

Dennis is cautiously targeting his home race this year after two years away from the international calendar due to the COVID-19 epidemic, and after winning the World Tour in 2015 and finishing just short of the podium in 2020, the last time the World Tour took place, Dennis is looking for a top-3 finish. He is aiming for a top-three finish.

The 32-year-old entered the second stage in 15th place overall. Hindley was not without trials after that, but he moved into the lead on a stage where the overall standings were not expected to change so drastically.

The second stage was also the stage where Jumbo Visma's fortunes in the race were completely reversed, as the first stage was a struggle and Robert Gesink crashed, hitting his head on the pavement and leaving the race.

"Robert was well-positioned and went into the technicals, but everyone was well inspired and did everything possible," Dennis said.

Rallying around Dennis will be something the team will have to do again, as there is no doubt that Friday is a key stage in the GC fight. The average gradient is 9.2% and the maximum gradient is 24.4%.

"Mount Lofty [Sunday's finale] is going to be a hard stage, but I don't think the GC will make a difference," said the team's coach. 'Tomorrow is the big one. Jay knows he has to drop us.