Hyundai Motorsport has made a tentative start to the penultimate round of the 2017 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC), Wales Rally GB, with all four of the team’s cars inside the top ten.
Paddon and co-driver Sebastian Marshall return to WRC action this weekend aiming to recapture the competitive form that saw them finish on the podium in Poland earlier this season. Knowing that the opening day of action in Wales is always subject to tricky conditions, the crew worked on finding confidence in their Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC.
Paddon said: “Wales Rally GB is a great rally, but it has certain particularities that you need to deliver against in order to be quick. First, you need absolutely bags of confidence and to be completely comfortable in the car. We always seem to struggle with understeer on the opening day, so we were mentally prepared for that, but it held us back today. The conditions were tricky, as you’d expect in Wales, but I’d almost have preferred it to be raining. We changed the settings for the afternoon loop but the conditions changed as well, so it’s a bit of a moving target. Tomorrow is, of course, another day and I hope we can enjoy it a bit more.”
Three-times rally winner this season, Thierry Neuville moved up into fourth place overall after taking a stage win on the day’s final test, Hafren, 37.1s from rally leader and home hero, Elfyn Evans. The Belgian had incurred a ten-second penalty on Thursday evening’s super special stage, Visit Conwy Tir Prince, after the car would not start ahead of the stage, putting him on the back foot from the outset of the rally.
Andreas Mikkelsen, in his second WRC event with Hyundai Motorsport, heads a trio of Hyundai i20 Coupe WRCs in seventh place overall ahead of Dani Sordo in eighth and Hayden Paddon in ninth.
Wales Rally GB’s opening day of action has covered a repeated loop of three stages – Myherin 20.28km, Sweet Lamb 4.24km and Hafren 35.14km. Teams were not afforded the luxury of a midday service with a remote tyre fitting zone in Newtown acting as the only respite for crews. A total distance of 119km run in dry conditions through the muddy Welsh forest offered a tough opening day with plenty of action still to run.
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