With four stages remaining, six riders are in the mix to win the Wellington Cycling classic.

Tour leader Peter McDonald (Drapac Porche), of Australia, is tailed by New Zealand time-trial champion Jeremy Vennell (Cardno), Tim Roe (Savings and Loans, Australia), Eric Drower (Subway-Avanti), Jeremy Yates (Enterprise) and Michael Torckler (Trust House) after yesterday's third stage.

All are within one minute of McDonald's time of six hours 25 minutes 39 seconds, with Vennell the closest at 19sec, followed by Roe at 28sec.

The 125km third stage from Masterton to the top of Admiral Hill was won by Australian Jai Crawford of Savings and Loans in a time of 3hr 10min 45sec.

Second was Thursday's stage winner, McDonald, at 16sec with Yates third at 20sec. Vennell was 1sec behind Yates in fourth.

"The battle for the title is still alive," Yates said, although he was disappointed not to win the stage.

"Like we saw last year, a lot can change in tomorrow's stages. Even though they don't look too difficult it will be a hard day at the office.

"It is shaping up to be an exciting finish. You can still throw a blanket over the first five or 10 guys and of course the time-trial is always pretty exciting," Yates said.

Today's action sees the peloton take on a 132km stage at Gladstone in the morning and a 45km criterium in Masterton in the afternoon.

The final day tomorrow sees a 12km individual time-trial on the Miramar peninsula in Wellington in the morning, with a criterium in the central business district to finish off the tour in the afternoon.

McDonald had hoped to put some time on the field yesterday on a stage that traditionally decided the probable outcome of the tour in years past.

But with Vennell, Yates, Drower, Torckler and Roe still in close attendance, McDonald said: "It finished a lot closer today than I thought it would so it's still anyone's tour.

"The key now is for Drapac Porche to work together. (With teams limited to five members), it will be hard to control this race so we need to be smart."

Nineteen seconds was not much for Vennell to chase down if the status quo remained and it came down to the time-trial.

"We'll try and get away, try a sneaky move tomorrow maybe, who knows."

Crawford rode solo from 20km out for his stage win.

But he was allowed to get away as he was not considered a threat by either McDonald or Vennell and, after today's stage, he was 1min 38sec off the pace in seventh.

Vennell said he would try and close in on McDonald today but "mainly I will be trying to save it for the time-trial on Sunday".

"We'll have to watch the criteriums especially because you can lose a lot of time, more than on the hills sometimes."

With the tour title still on the line, this morning's fourth stage is shaping up to be a thriller with the teams playing cat and mouse as they lap the Gladstone circuit four times.