Motorsport: Heat is on as Paddon masters Mexico

NZ Herald

6 Mar, 2015 04:00 PM4 mins to read

Hayden Paddon and co-driver John Kennard are tackling the Rally Guanajuato Mexico for the first time. Photo / Vettas Media

Kiwi driver may be a rookie at latest WRC round, but is ready for trial by fire.

New Zealand's top rallying pair of Hayden Paddon and John Kennard have swapped their winter woolies for board shorts and T-shirts this weekend for round three of the World Rally Championship. The pair arrived in Mexico this week and after their first recce are pleased to be back on the familiar gravel surface.

Paddon is contesting all bar one event on the 2105 WRC calendar and his first hit out was in the deep snow of Rally Sweden, where he finished a creditable fifth. What made the result even more remarkable is that the pair had been elevated to drive Dani Sordo's Hyundai i20 WRC after the Spaniard injured himself in a training accident.

As soon as the Swedish event finished, Paddon was off to Spain for two days of intense testing in his regular No20 car to assess the upgrades and to get a feel for gravel roads again.

Arriving in the Americas for Rally Guanajuato Mexico, he's back in his own car, back on familiar ground and looking for a good result to add to the 10 championship points he already has.

"We've just come back from a day's recce and been over a few of the stages," Paddon said from Mexico. "It's a bit different from a few weeks go when we were in the snow - it's lot warmer, that's for sure. The roads are looking good and are nice and flowing, which are my sort of roads.

"It's been good to get out there and see what it's all about. We're looking forward to the rally and will be pushing hard, but not to the extent that we make any mistakes.

"Since it's our first time racing here and it's still early in the season, we'll be doing things at our own speed before getting too carried away.

"That's the key for this weekend and, as you saw in Sweden, you never know what sort of result you can get."

Paddon and Kennard haven't contested the Mexican event before but aren't going into the rally completely blind.

His competitors will have a slight advantage having raced over the stages before, but Paddon was there last year and so has a base set of notes to work with.

"We're using the notes we took from last year as a start," he said. "Since Sweden we've been refining and fine-tuning the notes even more. The only drawback is we haven't driven with these notes at speed so we'll just have to visualise what that's going to be like.

"The idea, anyway, this early in the season, is to stay in the middle of the road, avoid the rocks and any problems. The rally [Mexico] sometimes has a high attrition rate so if we make it to the end we should be in a good position."

Being back in his own car does have an advantage - he and his crew have been developing the No20 car specifically for the Kiwi's driving style and needs. Although all three works i20s are similar, Paddon wasn't able to tune Sordo's car to his own liking, as the base setup was particular to the Spaniard's driving style.

"The cars are pretty much like for like, but it is good to be back in my baby," he said. "It's good to be able to have the flexibility to tune the car to the way I like it. We had a good test in Spain a week or two ago, which went really well and I've got a lot more confidence in the car at the moment."

Hyundai Motorsport have their usual team this weekend, with Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul in the No7 car, Dani Sordo back in action with co-driver Marc Marti in the No8 car and the Kiwis returning to their No20 car.

Despite being one of the more compact rallies of the season, teams tackle three of the longer stages in the championship - the 44km El Chocolate stage, the 43km Otates stage and tomorrow's massive 56km Guanajuatito stage.

Temperatures will be up around 30C, putting stress on drivers, co-drivers, mechanics and running gear. There were eight stages yesterday, the same today and three stages tomorrow.