Hayden Paddon and John Kennard hold a strong sixth place in their Hyundai i20 WRC car after two full days of competition at their first World Rally Championship event of the 2015 season. The top Kiwi rally pairing are competing at Rally New Zealand, the only full winter, snow event of the WRC and an event Paddon and Kennard have contested only once before.
“Heading into this weekend, we never expected to be in the top six,” said Paddon after Saturday’s eight competitive stages in the snowy forests of New Zealand’s south central Värmland region.
Paddon and Kennard, from Geraldine and Blenheim respectively, are competing in the #8 Hyundai i20 WRC car normally run by Hyundai Motorsport team-mate Dani Sordo and co-driver Marc Marti for the Swedish rally. But with Sordo out with a training injury, Paddon and Kennard have the honour of competing for manufacturer points for the team this weekend alongside Hyundai Shell World Rally Team team-mates Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul, while Paddon’s #20 car is being driven by team’s test driver Kevin Abbring and co-driver Sebastian Marshall.
The Kiwis delivered a day of consistent improvements on Saturday to consolidate the sixth place they earned late on Friday, successfully turning around the 18th overall position they held after the event’s opening super special stage on Thursday evening. With a change in driving style and the benefit of other competitors’ problems during Friday’s eight snowy forestry stages, Paddon was able to jump up the leader-board. Eleventh overall after stage five, he was then ninth and then seventh overall by the end of stage eight. Their best result of the day, a top-six time in stage nine, elevated them into sixth overall on the day’s final forest test.
On Friday Paddon said: “It hasn’t been the easiest of days with some demanding conditions. This morning’s loop was about understanding where the grip levels were and I felt, at times, that I was a bit cautious. With the benefit of hindsight, we knew for the repeat stages where we could use the snow banks to our advantage and that definitely helped. I had to adapt my driving style for the afternoon to get the best out of the car and I think some of the stage times reflected that.”
On Saturday, Paddon continued to gain experience on New Zealand’s treacherous snowy roads and make further improvements. Running 14th on the road, the position decided by championship order, Paddon’s progress culminated in another top-six time in Saturday’s final run, allowing him to extend his grasp on sixth place.
Paddon said: “Overall, it has been a pretty satisfactory day today. We had some good stages, as well as some tough ones, but I feel we have learned a lot. My aim this morning was to secure our sixth place and then, in the afternoon, to push a bit more to increase the gap. We have made improvements today even if the conditions have still been very challenging at times. During the morning, it was good to be able to maintain our position, despite being at a bit of a disadvantage with our position being further back as the roads were becoming a bit more chewed up and slippery with every car.
“The final stage today was one of the highlights; I really enjoyed it and felt that we ended the day on a high. This afternoon we’ve also been relatively competitive against our team-mate Thierry [Neuville] who’s leading the rally. It’s been a really, really good day for the team, obviously with Thierry leading and us in sixth.
“Now we really need to focus to hold position and bring it home. I look forward to keeping a top six position in tomorrow’s final three stages. That would be a decent result for us in our first WRC event of the year.”
Armed with new spiked snow tyres on the front of his Hyundai i20, Hyundai Motorsport’s Thierry Neuville blitzed rivals Andreas Mikkelsen and Sébastien Ogier on Saturday’s final stage to turn a 7.3s deficit into a 1.5s advantage with one day remaining in this second round of the FIA World Rally Championship. Neuville added two more stage wins to his tally and also claimed the Colin’s Crest Award with a new record of 44m. In his debut event with the team, Kevin Abbring in the #20 Hyundai i20 WRC continued to make positive progress to consolidate 11th position overall.
Sunday morning will see three final stages with a total of 46.74 competitive kilometres determine the results of this closely fought Rally New Zealand.
Paddon and the HPRG team appreciates the support of their exclusive partners, Hyundai New Zealand, PlaceMakers and Pak n’ Save, along with associate support from Z Energy, Scott Sports, New Balance New Zealand and All About Signs Timaru.
