New Zealand rallying was all about electric power last weekend with two of the country’s biggest stars plying their trades on opposite sides of the world.
At the Waimate 50 Hillclimb, Hayden Paddon made the competition debut of his Hyundai Kona EV and, not surprisingly, came away with a first up win.
The car ran faultlessly over the weekend, but rather than talking up the performance of the car, the frustrated former WRC star spent much of his time putting out fires.
Paddon and his team had long promised that the EV would make sound, and that it did for the first time.
As expected, it was a generated sound, and it wasn’t to everyone’s liking, but the winning driver was quick to point out that the sound output was only in the early trial phase.
“There are four phases to the sound side of things. This is the final prototype of phase one,” Paddon explained.
“We have only started designing phase two and three. It seems in this day and age you can never win, but we are confident in what we are doing and have thick skin.”
On a weekend when the talk should have been about the car’s performance and the incredible job the Paddon team has done in getting the car up and running, uneducated public responses about the car’s sound seemed uncalled for.
Like everyone, Paddon wants the car to sound like a real rally car.
“I’m not silly and like many in the sport, know what sounds good or not,” he added.
“Yes it needs work, but we have a good base. Just a pity so many have to judge so quickly when we are a privateer team of six people trying to think outside the box and trying to address the issues.”
He makes a good point.
Over in Italy, Dunedin’s Emma Gilmour had her second event in the new-for-2021 Extreme E championship.
She again teamed up with former Subaru WRC driver, Stephane Sarrazin, for Veloce Racing.
Any hopes of repeating their strong finish from Greenland evaporated in the semi-final when Sarrazin spectacularly rolled the team’s cars.
“(I’m) absolutely gutted. Stéphane and I had such good pace this weekend,” Gilmour said.
“Personally, I’m disappointed I didn’t get a better start, from then on we were struggling with the dust and I handed over to Stéphane in P3. He did a great job … but got caught out in the rough stuff, so I’m glad he’s OK, but just really sad for the team as we had good pace this weekend and it started so positively.”
Gilmour has no time to dwell on the disappointment though, as she’s back behind the wheel this weekend, driving a Ford Fiesta Rally 2 in Wales.
“I am off to Wales this weekend to compete in the Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally on Saturday,” she added.
“I’ll be teaming up with my former co-driver, Claire Mole.
“It’s been a long time between rally events for me and I can’t wait to see what Claire and I can achieve in this top level R5 car.”
2021 has been a disappointing year for Gilmour on the stages. She has contested three rounds of the NZ Rally Championship in her Suzuki Swift AP4, but has retired in all three with mechanical problems.
She has been seeded 11th in the British Rally Championship round, and will go head-to-head against Britain’s best national drivers.
The VW Polo GTi R5s of Matt Edwards and Asian Pryce are likely to set the pace, followed by the Fiesta Rally 2s of Matt Wilson, Rhys Yates and Keith Cronin. It will be a short, sharp rally, with seven stages over just 71km, so Gilmour will need to be on her game from the get-go.
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