Motorsport: Paddon's eye on the prize

After his win in Portugal, Hayden Paddon is ready to lead the Kiwi charge at Rally NZ. Photo / Supplied

New Zealand's Production World Rally Champion Hayden Paddon can't wait to put the next week of "meet and greets" behind him, strap himself into his S2000 rally car and carve up some of the best gravel roads in the world.

He's in high spirits heading into his home event coming off an unlikely win in the Super 2000 World Rally Championship in Portugal in April.

Paddon looked to be out of contention on the opening day of the rally when an electrical fault halted the Skoda Fabia. Restarting on Saturday, Paddon won every one of day's six stages to move into third in class.

On Sunday, Paddon and co-driver John Kennard moved into second place behind Yazeed Al Rajhi and then a broken cross-member on the Saudi's Ford opened the door for Paddon to take the win.

He is now second in the championship behind Craig Breen, who isn't contesting the New Zealand round of the series. If Paddon does well on home soil he'll move into the championship lead before the next round in Finland. No pressure then.

"The event has certainly crept up pretty quickly that's for sure," said Paddon. "Things are getting a bit real now that the car has arrived in the country and I can't wait to get to the first stage now.

"I can't wait to get strapped in and go racing. That's what I love - driving the car. Okay, the next week is kind of going to be pretty busy and when it's time to go racing it's almost like I can relax.

"Once I pull that helmet on everything else sort of fades away and I can concentrate on driving the car."

In the sport of rallying, to have a world rally championship under your belt at just 25 years of age is quite a feat. It's a sport the generally takes a lot of years to get your head around but Paddon has taken to it like a duck to water and on his day is nearly unbeatable.

Back racing in New Zealand there will be a number of drivers both younger and older who'll be looking up to Paddon as the bloke to lead the Kiwi charge against the overseas drivers.

"I don't know about being that young. At the end of the day we're all driving rally cars and having fun. I have a hell of a lot of respect for the Kiwi rally drivers and there's a very high calibre of rally drivers in New Zealand.

"At the top end of the national field everyone's going very fast. I don't really think about all that stuff too much as you've got to take each rally on its merits.

"You start from scratch in each rally and you've got to keep an eye on everyone," said Paddon.

Paddon knows the roads for two thirds of the rally like the back of his hand, but there are a few international drivers who have been here before who also know there away around fast and flowing North Island dirt tracks.

In the past Paddon has been able to keep some of the WRC drivers honest in his production-based car. But now he's in a purpose-built S2000 rally race car and despite being down a bit on horsepower, he's confident of giving some of the big boys a bit of a shake-up.

"Day one and day two stages we know pretty well, but day three is all new for everybody. I think doing the non-championship New Zealand rally last year on some of the roads will help up this year, said Paddon.

"I certainly hope we'll be able to take it to the big boys of the WRC during the race.

"This year the car has been able to compete with the lower end of the WRC cars," he said.

"Handling wise they're very similar but where we lose out is in top end speed on the long straights.

"Unfortunately New Zealand has a lot of long straights and the top speed of the S2000 cars is around 160km/h whereas a world rally car is up around 200km/h."

If the rally is all about outright speed Paddon may struggle, but a lot of the stages are tight and twisty which should play into Paddon's hands.

* For a more comprehensive preview of the race, see this Wednesday's edition of Driven (June 20).