They say the cream always comes to the top and it is the same in motorsport. The best, or the quickest, always shine no matter what machinery they have at their disposal. This is exactly what Ben Hunt has shown over the weekend at the Otago Rally, the opening round of the 2022 Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship, finishing second overall to Hayden Paddon.
Hunt has a brand-new Skoda Fabia R5 rally car, quite different to the Subaru Impreza he has been campaigning for several seasons. It is one of the most popular rally cars in the sport, with more than 440 units delivered for R5, Rally2 and Rally2 Evo events, all around the world since being introduced back in 2015.
Power comes from a “near-standard” 1.6-litre turbocharged inline-four making around 214kW with a maximum torque of 425Nm. Most of the components of the all-wheel drive are regulated. Unlike the Subaru Impreza, there’s no centre differential and the gearbox features five forward gears and a shifter specifically developed for racing.
So, what makes Hunt’s Rally Otago so special? Well, leading up to the event he, and co-driver Tony Rawstorn, had only completed 90kms in a brand-new car, before being thrust into a pretty high level of competition for our domestic rally series.
He then went on to win one stage (Hayden Paddon winning the other 13), finished in the top three fastest in four other Special Stages, finishing second overall to ex WRC driver Hayden Paddon.
He’s been a winner before, you might add, so what is the difference? Yes, he and Rawstorn became the national 2WD Champions in 2011 and 2012 and went on to win the 2015 NZ Rally Championship. However, the change in car from Subaru to Skoda is pretty dramatic so I put the question to him.
“You can’t compare,” said Hunt. “The Subaru is a production car while the Skoda is a purpose built World Rally Championship Rally2 car. The change of direction is the biggest thing. You’re braking later and you don’t necessarily have more acceleration, rather it is more efficient. The Skoda turns in much faster, it’s quite different.”
Paddon will not get beaten on our Kiwi roads in the foreseeable future by anyone in equal machinery and it will be interesting to see how quick he will be in his Hyundai i20N Rally2 car at the WRC Rally NZ at the end of September. So the next best would have to be Hunt and he is only going to get faster.
“It has been pretty nervous leading up to the rally,” said Hunt. “Tony and I have a few things to work on, particularly with pace notes and their delivery with regard to the amount of corner speed that we can carry.”
That was the same comment made by Paul Burborough, co-driver for Todd Bowden, who are campaigning a brand-new M-Sport built Ford Fiesta R5. It is a whole new ball-game stepping up to either an AP4 or R5 car.
“It’s pretty awesome,” commented Hunt. “There is still heaps to learn and we will get faster.”
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