Hayden Paddon and John Kennard have produced a solid day of driving to sit third in Rally Poland.
The day started well for the pair as they claimed the opening stage and wrapped up the morning’s efforts with another win on stage four.
The two wins were good for second place behind Andreas Mikkelsen but Paddon slipped back a place in the afternoon.
He was pleased with his performance on Friday (Saturday NZ time).
“It’s been a good day,” he said.
“It’s obviously pleasing to get to the end of a day at a rally which it’s felt like a long time since we’ve done that, so that’s very nice. The fight’s very close.
“To win three stages today and to be within seven seconds of the lead, it’s all very tight.”
Paddon was pleased with how his morning on the sandy Polish roads started.
“This morning was a good loop for us, everything felt comfortable and the times were coming easily.
“We struggled a bit more this afternoon as the conditions were quite rough and we didn’t really adapt the car set-up well enough.
“We’ll sit down and make a new plan of attack for tomorrow. The aim is to keep going at this pace, we’re not prepared to take massive risks, we need to let the times come to us so we just have to make some small adjustments tonight and be back on it tomorrow.”
The afternoon’s repeated loop of the four stages saw the roads develop significant ruts which caused Paddon some ride height issues. Still, the Kiwi maintained his composure and wrapped up the day’s longer stages with a third stage win.
Paddon and Kennard sit 10.2 seconds behind rally leader Ott Tanak, with second-placed Mikkelsen six seconds ahead.
WRC series leader Sebastian Ogier lies fourth, with Paddon’s Hyundai team-mates Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo sitting fifth and 11th respectively.
The rally continues on Saturday (Sunday NZ time) with almost 125km of special stages. A loop of three stages will be repeated with one run in the morning and one in the afternoon and the day finishes with a third run of the Mikolajki Arena Super Special.
