Motorsport: Paddon survives tough opening day

Hayden Paddon during the Shakedown of the WRC Germany. Photo / Getty Images

Kiwi Hayden Paddon is ninth after the first full day of Rally Germany while his Hyundai teammate Thierry Neuville is third but in front of title rival Sebastien Ogier.

M-Sport Ford driver Ott Tanak leads the rally by 5.7s from Citroen's Andreas Mikkelsen with Belgian Neuville a further 22.5s further adrift.

Paddon found the slippery asphalt surface tricky to contend with and a slow puncture saw him lose more time.

"We entered this rally knowing it was going to be one the hardest of the season for us, but still it was tougher than we probably expected," Paddon said.

"The conditions were really horrible at times, and there was no clear direction on tyre choice. We had a slow puncture in SS4 which lost us a lot of time, but even without that we were struggling for a rhythm.

Not the day we wanted....tricky conditions this afternoon and no confidence. Time to study data/onboards tonight and improve tomorrow pic.twitter.com/EIIKw5Bk8n

— Hayden Paddon (@HaydenPaddon) August 18, 2017

"We now need to refocus on our aim of getting to the end of the rally and to score as many points as we can for the team."

Point-scoring becomes important for the New Zealander after teammate Dani Sordo crashed out of the event midway through the day.

Neuville is 2.4s in front of Ogier as the pair fight to take the championship lead in Germany.

Rally Germany Standings
Ott Tanak (M-Sport Ford)
Andreas Mikkelsen (Citroen) +5.7s
Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) +28.2s
Sebastien Ogier (M-Sport Ford) +30.6s
Elfyn Evans (DMACK Ford) +52.1s
Juho Hanninen (Toyota) +1:14.7s
Craig Breen (Citroen) +1:24.5s
Jari-Matti Latvala (Toyota) +1:54.7s
Hayden Paddon (Hyundai) +2:29.5s