| Bernard Carpinter reports on the rise of rally driver Hayden Paddon. New Zealand has produced a world-class rally driver. His name is Hayden Paddon, he lives in Geraldine in South Canterbury, and he is 24 years old – still quite young for a rally driver. Paddon already has two New Zealand titles and last year he came close to winning the Production World Rally Championship in his first season at world level. He made such an impression that the authoritative Autosport website placed him 10th in its list of the world’s best rally drivers for the year, citing “his prodigious talent and his massive commitment to every element of the sport”. In 2010 Paddon won the PWRC class at Rally NZ but a puncture in France cost him a chance of taking the title. He finished third in the series. Still, it was a fantastic effort. Experience is vital in rallying and each event in the world championship has different characteristics, ranging from snow to desert-like conditions. Paddon had very little experience of rallying on tarmac but he learnt very fast. His 2010 PWRC season was funded by the Pirelli tyre company, as Paddon had won a Pirelli Star Driver scholarship. This year he has put together his own programme with his New Zealand World Rally Team – and switched from Mitsubishi, whose products he had driven for several years, to Subaru. Switching from one type of car to another is not easy but Paddon managed it in fine style – he and long-time co-driver John Kennard won the PWRC class in Portugal by a record seven minutes 39.3 seconds from the other 17 contenders. And that was in spite of losing a couple of minutes on the final day after the car suffered a bent steering arm. He led all the way, and was a minute in front halfway through the second of the three days. “In the afternoon, when our closest competition hit problems in the rough conditions, we decided to back off to protect our car on the deteriorating roads,” Paddon said. “It was very difficult to drive at less than full pace, knowing that from there the rally was ours to lose. But we had to constantly keep the end result in mind and drive with the head instead of the right foot. “The car’s been fantastic. It’s much better than the Mitsubishi in the tight and twisty stuff; it just picks up and goes out of the corners. Okay, we miss a little bit at the top end of the engine, but the handling makes up for that. It’s been a great rally!” And Paddon reckoned there was better to come, as he became more accustomed to driving the new car and setting it up for different conditions. The Subaru is prepared by the Belgium-based Symtech Racing team and Paddon said they had done a wonderful job. “It got such a battering on the roads, but the car’s been strong and the team were fantastic,” he said. “I cannot thank the Symtech Racing team and everyone back at home enough for giving me this opportunity.” Of course Paddon’s aim is to become a works driver in the top level of the World Rally Championship and if he continues his fine form he has a good chance of becoming the first Kiwi to achieve that status. He will be helped in that quest by the fact that the WRC field is expanding as more manufacturers are joining in, encouraged by new regulations that make the cars less expensive to develop. For a few seasons Citroen and Ford were the only manufacturers taking part but this year Mini has joined in and Volkswagen has announced its plans to enter soon. Meanwhile Paddon is also contesting three of the five rounds of the Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship, using a different Subaru supplied by Robbie Leicester. His results in the first two rounds, Rally Otago and Rally New Zealand, were perfect – at each event he won both legs and the outright victory. The scoring system awards points for each leg and more points for overall placings based on total times over the two legs. Rally Otago saw Paddon finish comfortably clear of defending champion Dean Sumner (Mitsubishi), who was followed home by former champions Chris West (Mitsubishi) and Richard Mason (Subaru). Emma Gilmour had been in contention but dropped to seventh after damaging her Subaru in a crash. Rally New Zealand, based in the Waikato, was a national event this year, not a round of the world championship. After day one Paddon led Mason by 2 minutes 17 seconds – even though his engine would not rev over 4500rpm for part of the day. On day two Paddon was handicapped to some extent by running first through the gravel, starting to sweep the road, while Mason put on a charge and finished just nine seconds back. Overall in the main championship class (Group N) Mason was second ahead of Gilmour, series sponsor Brian Green (Mitsubishi) and Matt Van Tuinen (Subaru). |
“It’s been a great weekend and it’s pretty cool to know that my name’s going to be engraved on the trophy beside names like Colin McRae,” Paddon said. “He was always one of my heroes, so that makes this a very special victory.
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