Motorsport: Paddon gets his mojo back at end of season

Hayden Paddon stormed to victory at Rally New Zealand. Photo / Geoff Ridder

Kiwi rally driver Hayden Paddon hopes to have put a line through a disappointing 2017 by finishing the year on a high.

The 30-year-old Hyundai factory driver backed up his podium at the World Rally Championship finale in Australia by storming to a dominant victory in Rally New Zealand at the weekend.

Along the way Paddon won all 12 stages and set a number of stage record times in the process.

After a disastrous year results-wise at WRC level where he was plagued by rogue scenarios, bad luck and a handful of uncharacteristic mistakes there was some light at the end of the tunnel in the month of November.

"The last few weeks have started to click at bit more like normal," Paddon told The Herald. "Rally New Zealand felt a lot more relaxing. You come here with no pressure and working with a whole lot of friends that makes it a lot more enjoyable.

"You feel the tide maybe moving a little bit but at the end of the day it's not like we were missing a whole lot of speed this year in places. It is just a matter of getting all these little bits and pieces right.

"We have seen in the last couple of rallies all of a sudden things have started to fall our way a little bit again and just feeling positive about things and starting to enjoy the driving more.

"All those little ingredients will help to complete the package for the future."

Confidence at that level can seriously translate to results. Paddon has clearly been down on confidence this year and has been searching for his best form.

"The WRC is so competitive now – it is the most competitive it has been in its history," he said. "You do 20-30km stages and everyone has such high stage knowledge now with the technology we have that seven or eight drivers can be separated by less than five seconds.

"It is very much like circuit racing – you are trying to maximizing every single corner, every braking point and there is simply no room for error."

Paddon has accepted that he will have a part-time WRC campaign in 2018 with he and veteran Spaniard Dani Sordo basically sharing a car.

That means he will skip the season-opening Monte Carlo rally in January.

The Geraldine product will enjoy some time in New Zealand over the next five weeks before heading back to Europe early in the New Year to embark on his 2018 season.

"Couple of weeks of PR stuff – I am doing some stuff with Hyundai New Zealand around the country and then looking forward to two or three weeks off, a bit of time off with family and focus on some good training.

"Summer time in New Zealand is perfect for training.

"Then head back in first week of January – we have the launch of the team and the car on January 11th at the Autosport Show in the UK and then we start getting ready for testing for Sweden."