"Driving the car in competition for the first time means a few things to adapt to," Paddon said, having finished the morning in sixth overall. "We know from experience that the afternoon loops are better with the road conditions, so we'll have to hope we can get a bit closer."
As heavy snow started to fall, the three stages were run in reverse order for the afternoon.
In what would be a significant move, Paddon and Kennard were able to take advantage of their road position - a clearer line in the falling snow from earlier competitors - and push on to win Saturday's final two stages.
This saw the Kiwis leap-frog other competitors suffering mechanical woes and take second place overall, 32.4s behind Ogier.
"To be in second was much more than we were expecting, especially after this morning. Okay, we had an advantage this afternoon [running ninth on the road] which was a disadvantage this morning when there was no snow.
"To come up to second, to be in a good, close fight with four or five of us to be on the podium tomorrow is a nice position to be in. But it's going to be a big fight; very close. We have to try and find some improvements overnight, try and get a bit more comfortable in the car. There is a lot more room for improvement so we have to keep pushing."
Just 15s separated Paddon in second and Andreas Mikkelsen in sixth, setting up a closely fought five-way battle going into yesterday. Plenty of long-awaited snow in the region overnight meant the stages were in much better condition for the studded snow tyres. For the five stages (reduced from eight), crews started in championship order, which put Ogier first on the road again and Paddon seventh.
Paddon and Kennard delivered a strong performance with consistent top three stage times, including a stunning run through the popular Vargasen stage - which features the spectacular Colin's Crest jump - to slash the gap to Ogier to just 8.8s.
More importantly, edging closer to Ogier meant a bigger buffer to the hard-chasing Mads Ostberg in third. The Kiwis continued well and finished the day comfortably holding second. Their margin to Ogier was 17.1s, and they were 25.2s ahead of Ostberg.
"We went into the penultimate stage 10s behind Ogier and that's like a minute to anyone else," said Paddon after SS16. "We need to be smart.
"It's been a good day. To consolidate our position in second is very good. That was obviously the target today. We got pretty close to Seb there in the morning run when road conditions played into our hands. We weren't able to quite keep pace on the afternoon stages, but still we're very happy to be where we are.
"It's a short day tomorrow. We really just need to concentrate on maintaining the position. This would be a great result for the team and for ourselves if we can finish it off, so that's the target now."
