New Zealand rally stars Hayden Paddon and John Kennard lead the 2023 FIA European Rally Championship (ERC) points-table after scoring second place at the second round.
The pair’s busy year is in high gear – after the end of the Rally Islas Canarias, which ran 4-6 May, they were quickly on a plane back to New Zealand for the International Rally of Whangarei.
The second ERC round in the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain was not originally on Paddon’s schedule but he and Italian team BRC agreed that it was a good plan to try and earn points at the earlier rounds of the eight-round championship where drivers count their best seven scores from a possible eight.
Though tarmac is not Paddon’s strong point, he was pleased to score second place and retain the championship lead.
The pair started with a win in Thursday’s opening super special stage which concluded on a basketball court. Unexpected rain cost them time in Friday’s opening SS2 when the road dried quickly for following competitors. The Kiwis fought back to second place overall by SS5 and tinished the day 11 seconds off Frenchman Yoann Bonato in the lead.
Saturday’s six stages again caught some unexpected rain, making tyre choices challenging, but Paddon and Kennard maintained their consistent focus to hold second place overall through to the finish.
“To come away with second was more than we expected, and it couldn’t have gone much better. If you’d said before the weekend that we’d come away with a podium finish, we’d have definitely taken that with both hands. It’s perfect for our championship and allowed us to build a small lead now which is a good way to start the season.”
Paddon now has 58 points to Bonato’s 47 points having secured the maximum 30 points as the winner of Rally Islas Canarias.
Paddon said the Spanish fans are hugely passionate about rallying.
“The tarmac stages are amazing, fast, twisty and hilly. Day one was very good and we were able to stay in touch with the leader Bonato, but the changeable weather conditions on day two made it a bit trickier for us without prior knowledge of the stages and trying to get the right tyre choices. Having said that, the second day (Saturday) was about consolidating our position in second place because we were quite happy with that as our core goal was to secure points in the championship.”
Paddon pays credit to the team’s hard work putting together a very successful weekend in the Hyundai i20 N Rally 2 car.
Running the same type of Hyundai i20 N Rally 2 car on both sides of the world is a significant aspect of Paddon’s busy 2023 schedule with learnings and performance gains being applied to both the New Zealand car run by Paddon’s own PRG team and the European car being run by Italian team BRC in partnership with some PRG personnel.
