Australian Richie Porte blasted away his rivals to take control of the Tour Down Under after launching a withering attack on Wednesday at the bottom of the steep climb to the stage-two finish at Paracombe in the Adelaide Hills.

After finishing runner-up at the past two Tours, the Tasmanian leads the race. He beat Spaniard Gorka Izaguirre (Movistar) by 16 seconds, with Colombian star Esteban Chaves (Orica-Scott) in third place on the same time.

Porte holds a 20-second lead over Izaguirre and Chaves, a solid advantage given this race is often decided by only a second or two. And Porte is a three-time winner in the critical second-last stage at Willunga.

“To be able to ride away like that gives me good confidence,” Porte said. “[But] there are some stressful days coming up. We won’t be counting our chickens until they hatch.”

The Tour is Porte’s first race since crashing out five months ago in the Rio Olympics road race.

The Adelaide race is an important early-season objective for Porte, who is aiming this year for the Tour de France podium. He cautioned last week that he was unsure of his form, but there were no doubts now.

The overnight cool change was a welcome respite for the Tour field, with temperatures in the mid-20s after Tuesday’s Barossa furnace.

German cyclist Sasha Sutterlin (Movistar) went on a solo attack before the 30km mark in the 145km stage from Stirling to Lobethal. He was caught with about 40km left.

Porte’s Australian team-mate Rohan Dennis, whose surprise win at Paracombe two years ago set him up for the overall title, suffered a flat tyre inside the last 30km, but he rejoined the field without too much trouble.

As expected, stage-one winner and overnight leader Caleb Ewan (Orica-Scott) did not feature among the leaders at Paracombe.

Wednesday was christened the Tour’s new Queen stage, with a tough run to the finish and the solid Paracombe climb set to shake up the general classification.

But there were no fireworks during the five laps of an undulating loop around Stirling. All the contenders were together at the front of the race when Porte blew them away at the foot of the 1.6km Paracombe climb.