COLUMN: Hayden Paddon, Hyundai WRC driver

Hyundai World Rally Championship driver, Hayden Paddon, shares his thoughts after the most recent round of the WRC, the Rally of Portugal. The Kiwi finished in eighth place, but was closer to the leaders than ever before, which bodes well for the future.

Read Hayden's comments below.

So we have successfully finished a relatively good event for us here in Portugal, finishing 8th overall – but the closest we have been to the leaders. To put it in context, we were closer to the leaders here compared to last year’s Rally Australia (6th) and this year’s Rally Sweden (5th).

Despite having the goal to try and finish in the top 5 here, all teams and drivers seemingly had few problems and competition within the top 10 was very close all rally long.

We were in a good three-way battle for 6th for the past two days, but unfortunately lost too much time on the short Fafe stage – which the other drivers knew well from previous years’ rallysprint.

Nevertheless, we are happy with the weekend and the progress we have made. It feels as though we now are back on track.

Our benchmark is always our teammates and this weekend we were the fastest Hyundai on 6 of the 14 stages. Finishing less than 30 seconds behind the leading Hyundai, Dani Sordo in 6th. This alone is the measurement we are using to gauge our performance and gives us good confidence moving forward – particularly once we get some of the upgrades, which we are expecting in the coming rallies.

The new look Portugal Rally was a very nice rally, a variety of challenging stages and changeable grip levels. The nice stages, combined with the HUGE crowds made it a pleasure to drive here – sharing the enthusiasm with all the fans.

We had a reasonably troublefree run, which included a 2nd fastest stage time on SS4. We should have made it another two top 3 stage times, but badly worn tyres at the end of SS7, and an overshoot on SS8 cost us this. Damage after hitting a rock on the final stage of Day 2 cost us another 20 seconds – but all in all it was a good weekend.

A huge thanks to the team who did an amazing job. They were kept busy making repairs to the car Saturday night after our impact with the rock, but today the car was as good as new. It was also amazing to have the support of some of our Kiwi friends here who have been out on the stages waving the New Zealand flag.

Now it’s a busy two weeks preparing for Sardinia. We have already shifted our focus to this rally so that we can continue this progression.

While we are closer than ever to the leaders (now 0.5 seconds per km to the rally winner), I’m not one for finishing 8th – so will be aiming higher for the future events and working harder to make it happen.

Thanks for your support and I’ll keep you posted.

- Hayden

Our thanks to Hayden Paddon for allowing us to publish his regular column on www.rallysportmag.com.au

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