Canberra cyclist Nathan Haas missed out on a podium by the narrowest of margins, but the Dimension Data rider's Tour Down Under has him eyeing a win at next weekend's Cadel Evans Road Race.
Haas finished the TDU fourth, 51 seconds behind overall winner Richie Porte, who claimed his first ochre jersey to make himself an early contender for this year's Tour de France.
Orica-Scott's young gun Caleb Ewan won the sixth-and-final stage in Adelaide on Sunday, outsprinting world champion Peter Sagan to claim his fourth stage win of the TDU - a feat only equalled by Robbie McEwen and Andre Greipel.
Haas finished ninth in the final sprint and finished on the same overall time as fellow Australian Jay McCarthy, only for a countback to hand the third spot on the podium to McCarthy.
But Haas took a lot of confidence out of his second-place finish on the penultimate stage up the tough Willunga Hill on Saturday, which launched him into podium contention.
The 27-year-old also finished third in the Australian road race championship at Ballarat two weeks ago.
Now he has his eyes set on taking out the race named in honour of Australia's only Tour de France winner, Cadel Evans, next Sunday.
"There's another race in Australia first that I've been wanting to win is the Cadel Evans Race," Haas said.
"I've been third and sixth there so I've been lingering around the win for a while and I think I would really like to win that."
After that Haas's focus will switch to the Spring Classics in Europe, where he has his sights set on the Amstel Gold Race - one of the biggest one-day races in the world.
It's a race fellow Canberran Michael Matthews also targets, having finished fifth and third there the last two years.
That sets up a potential Canberra one-two, with Haas saying "hopefully I'll be number one".
"Then it moves into the next big races that I love, which is the Ardennes [Classics] and especially the Amstel Gold," he said.
"This sort of ride [at Willunga] bodes well for that and good confidence for myself to know that I am good on these punchy climbs and maybe even good enough to win."