"The Skoda's handling is very good, however, and on certain events we will be able to compete with them, and from knowing the difference between the cars we are encouraged with our speed and times."
Paddon and Kennard fly back to New Zealand for the September 7 running of the Possum Bourne Memorial Rally, part of the New Zealand Rally Championship, where they'll be back in their championship-winning Stadium Cars Evo 9.
V8 Supercars
As predicted in Saturday's Driven, the V8 Supercars race at Winton, Victoria, did indeed throw up another new winner. James Moffat grabbed his maiden win in the main game, which was also Nissan's first time on the podium top spot.
The other two race winners over the weekend were Mark Winterbottom, who continues to monster his way up the championship table, and a resurgent James Courtney. The series has been ripped wide open with the most successful team of late, Red Bull Racing Australia, having a weekend to forget.
A 12th different winner in 2013 and failures by Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes has led to the tightest championship battle in recent memory.
With the Enduro Cup races of the Sandown 500, the Bathurst 1000 and the Gold Coast 600 just weeks away anywhere up to nine drivers are in sight of the championship lead.
Mitch Evans GP2
Aucklander Mitch Evans wasn't able to repeat his form from his GP3 days at Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium over the weekend at the Belgium Formula One Grand Prix.
Evans was hoping to get the car in the sweet spot during practice but was unable to do so, suffering engine overheating problems which curtailed his time in the machine to just a few laps.
With the lack of set-up time Evans struggled to qualify in 14th and battled stoically to cross the line in 11th.
Battling hard to try and rectify an ill-handling car the team went too far the wrong way for race two and Evans struggled from the time the lights went out. He hung in there through a few heart-in-the-mouth moments to get home in 10th for a single championship point.
"From the first lap I was struggling for rear grip. We had made a lot of changes to the set-up overnight and I was in trouble from the start," said Evans.
"We were on the back foot for the whole weekend and when you qualify back in the pack it's always a struggle because everyone's so close."
IndyCar
Will Power was gifted his first IndyCar win of the season when New Zealander Scott Dixon was hit with a penalty when leading the Sonoma race. As Dixon was exiting his pit box for the last time a Penske tyre handler failed to get out of the way and was hit by the Kiwi.
"He's walked towards us on purpose. It's probably the most blatant thing I've seen in a long time," said Dixon. "If you watch most pit guys they try and get out of the way of other people. I'm pretty annoyed with it all. We had a strong car all day."
The penalty moved Dixon all the way back to 20th where he moved up to 15th by race end. He now heads to Baltimore next weekend 39 points behind championship leader Helio Castroneves.
