The 30-year-old was full of praise for his team after a resounding victory in the 138km third stage from Mossburn to Queenstown.
The team executed its race plan superbly, propelling him into the final climb.
''They positioned me perfectly, and sacrificed themselves to make sure I was right there. It was pretty much perfect.
''It was up to me from there. ''
He won in 3hr 44min 4sec, 32sec ahead of Canadian James Piccoli. Christchurch's Michael Vink, runner-up last year, was a further 5sec back.
With warm, calm conditions encouraging aggressive riding, six riders broke away after the Jollies Pass climb, with Joshua Scott, Ethan Batt, Nicholas Costello, Brendan Cole, Alex Ray and Kris Rush getting out to a 7min lead at one point.
But the real race started at the bottom of the Coronet Peak road with Torckler, Vink, Piccoli and Dunedin's Brad Evans jostling for contention.
Evans cracked early on the climb to finish 15th, while Piccoli could not respond to Torckler's attack at the Skippers Rd turnoff.
Torckler, who holds a 44sec buffer over Piccoli in the overall standings, was also wearing the yellow jersey at this time last year after winning the stage.
This time around, he looks forward to the fight to hang on to it for the rest of the tour.
He will be looking to his Blindz Direct team-mates to give him the opportunity to defend his lead.
''Obviously, the tour is not over, and we saw that last year with the lead changing pretty much every day.
''I'm feeling pretty good. I've been feeling pretty confident all week, and today just cements that I'm riding well.
''Tomorrow it's going to be really important, just watching some key guys, not getting caught out anywhere and making sure my team-mates just wrap around me; that's going to be the key.''
Evans, a previous winner of the tour, has his work cut out to win a second - he is 3min 37sec back in 11th overall.
The Kia Motors-Ascot Park Hotel team holds a 2min 57sec lead over Aardvark Excavators in the team standings.
Callum Gordon (Business South) won the Jollies Pass climb to retain the king of the mountain jersey, with Alexandra's James Williamson (Creation Signs L&M Mining Group Ricoh) holding a six-point lead over Gordon in the sprint ace standings.
Alex West (Team Skoda Racing) is the leading under-23 rider in seventh place overall.
