Things couldn’t have gone much better for Hayden Paddon at last weekend’s Rally Coromandel, with the local WRC star winning the event and claiming his fourth New Zealand Rally Championship title.
The win didn’t come as easily as expected, however, with technical issues costing valuable time through the day, but his pace was again unsurpassed.
While his winning margin was just 18.7 seconds, his lead after the opening 22km stage was an incredible 44.8 seconds, and it had grown to over a minute and 10 seconds after two stages.
Then, his Hyundai i20 AP4+ started blowing turbo hoses off, and it was a mad fight to regain the lead and secure yet another victory.
“Essentially it was damage limitation, but we were able to hold on in the end,” Paddon said afterwards
On the other side of the world, things were working out okay for Paddon as well, with two of his Hyundai WRC team-mates hitting stumbling blocks at Rally Deutschland.
Andreas Mikkelsen may have a Hyundai contract for 2019 (the only team driver to do so), but the Norwegian was far from impressive on an event he finished second at last year, driving for the rival Citroen team.
He was off the pace for the entirety of the rally, bemoaning the differential settings of the car – something Paddon can certainly relate to!
Dani Sordo, the man Paddon is sharing his Hyundai seat with this year, looked on track for a podium place, but crashed heavily on the opening stage of the final day and didn’t trouble the scorers.
Pace is one thing, but team bosses want point-scoring finishers, and Sordo wasn’t able to achieve that.
After his fourth place at Rally Finland, and another NZRC event win, Paddon keeps compiling the miles and building for the second half of the season – and his push for a full-time seat in 2019.
Back on home soil, it was Ben Hunt who was again the ‘best of the rest’ at the pointy end of the NZRC field, driving his Subaru to second place for the third time this season.
Hunt now has a commanding 22 point lead over Josh Marston in the race for the runners-up spot, but the Holden driver is in a ding-dong battle with Aussie Nathan Quinn, and Matt Summerfield in the race for third.
The trio are separated by just two points heading into the final round – Rally New Zealand in October – with all still to play for.
Another to impress so far in 2018 has been Dylan Thomson, who leads the NZRC 2WD category by a massive 44 points after winning all five events this year in his Ford Fiesta.
Thomson’s upgrade to a 4WD Subaru next year is one that is going to be very keenly watched. With the right backing, he’s likely to be yet another front-runner.
The first 10 seeded cars at Rally Coromandel were from 10 different makes of car – a stat that has probably never been seen anywhere else in the world before.
It was just another confirmation of the NZRC’s increasing appeal.
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