[5] A quartet of riders – UniSA-Australia's Rohan Dennis, Vacansoleil–DCM rider Marcello Pavarin, Martin Kohler of BMC Racing Team and Team Katusha's Eduard Vorganov – made the early breakaway from the field, and managed to extend their advantage over the main field to in excess of eleven minutes at one point during the stage, which was run in conditions of 40 °C (104 °F).

[7] As such, the riders between them managed to take all sub-classification points on offer during the stage, at both of the intermediate sprints and the single categorised climb at Taylers Run.

Lotto–Belisol lost their attacking impetus at that point after Greg Henderson, one of the lead-out men for André Greipel, crashed and could not recover back to the main field.

[8] With the field closing yet further, Dennis made a solo bid for victory from 15 km (9.3 mi) out and was clear by around a minute before eventually being caught several kilometres later, towards the run-in to Clare.

Clarke remained ten minutes clear as he entered the second lap of the circuit and despite the panic that had set in to the teams in the peloton, he maintained a sufficient amount of energy to continue holding them off.

[16] He entered the final lap clear by nine minutes, but was tiring dramatically as the fatigue began to set in after his lengthy exploits off the front of the field.

[18] Just like on stage one, a breakaway quartet – RadioShack–Nissan's Jan Bakelants, Vacansoleil–DCM rider Thomas De Gendt, Matt Brammeier of Omega Pharma–Quick-Step and Team Katusha's Eduard Vorganov – advanced clear of the main field, and managed to extend their advantage to a maximum of around five-and-a-half minutes at one point during the stage, far less than what the pack gave away to Will Clarke the previous day.

Rabobank, BMC Racing Team and GreenEDGE did most of the work on the front as they pushed speeds to around 55 km/h (34 mph),[22] prior to the finish in Victor Harbor.

Rabobank had looked to set up Michael Matthews for victory and a potential ochre jersey, but could not find clear space to attack, and it was left to Mark Renshaw to lead out the sprint to the line.

[23] Mini-attacks set the course for the early running of the stage as the field remained as one prior to the first intermediate sprint of the day, coming after 25.3 km (15.7 mi), in the town of Kersbrook.

[27] GreenEDGE provided the pace in the peloton, and with that speed, it allowed the field to catch the trio out front with around 30 km (18.6 mi) left to run of the parcours, and prior to the final climb of the day at Mengler Hill.

[28] UniSA-Australia rider Rohan Dennis led over the hill, to take the 16 points on offer for first place,[27] while Greipel lost more than seven minutes by stage's end.

[26] Gerald Ciolek finished second on the stage for Omega Pharma–Quick-Step, which like Freire, moved him into the top five of the overall classification, which was led once again by Kohler after he was part of the 48 riders that were in contention.

[27] The race's queen stage had an added twist for its 2012 running, with the implementation of Old Willunga Hill – a 3 km (1.9 mi) climb at an average gradient of 7.6%[32] – as a summit finish for the first time.

[34] With strong cross-winds during the stages, several teams – mainly BMC Racing Team, Lotto–Belisol and RadioShack–Nissan – looked to create a split in the field via an echelon, which was ultimately successful as the increased pace managed to shed some thirty riders from the back of the peloton, including Lampre–ISD's Matthew Lloyd for a short period of time; also reduced was the advantage to the sextet out front, cutting their gap from over eight minutes down to the three-minute mark.

[35] He was chased by De Gendt, whereas O'Grady dropped back in order to help with his team's challenge in the expectation of putting one of their riders into the ochre jersey.

[38] Machado finished third ahead of Rogers and Dennis, with the three riders also in that order, taking third, fourth and fifth places in the overall standings and within fifteen seconds of Gerrans' lead.

Bakelants was later joined by defending race winner Cameron Meyer of the GreenEDGE team and Romain Sicard (Euskaltel–Euskadi) to form the second mini-breakaway of the stage.

As they had done twice before in the week, it was Lotto–Belisol playing their hand best, as André Greipel was released to a third stage victory and an eleventh career win in the Tour Down Under, putting him one shy of the record held by Robbie McEwen.

[42] There was no change in the top five overall, which meant that Gerrans secured the overall title for the second time,[41] after previously winning the race in 2006 for AG2R Prévoyance; it also allowed GreenEDGE to claim victory in its first World Tour event.