Kiwi No 1 Hayden Paddon is having a happier time on day three of the Rally of Australia.
His hopes of victory in the WRC-2 class were dashed on Friday when a faulty, 20 cent electrical part had him out before the start of Friday’s opening stage.
At the lunchtime service today, a happier Paddon said he had an enjoyable morning.
”There were some small problems with car that we fixing but I am happy with times and I am loving all the Kiwi support out on the stages.”
Paddon has bounced back and was the fastest WRC-2 competitor in his Skoda Fabia S2000 on the long 49.9km special stage by 27 seconds over Saudi driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and 9th quickest overall.
Under the Rally 2 regulations, Paddon was be given times for the missed stages of the fastest competitor, plus five minutes from the WRC-2 category for each stage.
That has him trailing the WRC-2 leader, Ukrainian Yurii Protasov, by over 30 minutes, but he hopes to continue to make inroads and improve on his eighth position.
