The Kia Motors-Ascot Park Hotel rider holds a 35sec lead over Michael Torckler and 38sec on Michael Vink before the final two stages — a 13km individual time trial in Winton followed by a nervous 77km final stage from Winton to Invercargill.
Piccoli attacked his way into the yellow jersey with a daring move 20km from the stage finish yesterday.
He had trailed Torckler by 32sec at the beginning of the day.
"I was sort of in no-man’s land for a little bit and then I saw the tail of the caravan and that’s when I felt it was possible," Piccoli said.
"I was lucky that I had a tailwind at the time, so it made the bridge across a little easier. We were super happy to pull it off. It was a little bit of a surprise, but we’ll take it."
What Piccoli has the yellow jersey, it was Dunedin’s Brad Evans who won the stage.
The 2015 Tour winner was part of a leading group of five riders and won the sprint race to line.
James Fouche took second with Logan Griffin nabbing third place. Piccoli was fifth with Vink fourth.
"The breakaway had originally gone up the road and had some pretty dangerous guys in it on GC [general classification]," Piccoli said.
"The team brought it back just close enough that I could get across."
Vink was the highest-placed rider in a break which numbered nine at its peak and was out by close to 2min at Te Tipua to install Vink as the virtual leader.
Piccoli has led and won stage races before, and is looking forward to defending the yellow jersey.
While he is more used to racing time trials on specialist time trial bikes, he has done some training on a road bike.
"I wouldn’t call myself a time trial specialist, but I can hold my own," he said.
"I’m looking forward to the last two stages of the race. Everyone is probably pretty tired at this stage of the race; that’s the way stage races go. But we’ll see what we have got left in the legs."
Only three foreign riders have had their names inscribed on the Tour of Southland winners trophy -— Australians Mal Powell (1964) and Mitchell Lovelock-Fay (2014), and United States rider John Lieswyn in 2002 and 2004.
Alexandra’s James Williamson kept hold of the sprint ace jersey heading into the final day, with Piccoli also taking over the king of the mountains classification.
