Mount Maunganui rally team Dave Holder and co-driver Jason Farmer have finished ninth at the Rally Finland.
The pair were among 13 finishers in the Junior World Rally Championship category on Sunday morning.
Holder said the placing was "not the result we wanted from this event" but was happy to keep his 100 per cent finish rate in his debut junior season.
The pair set the third-fastest stage time on the opening 11.74km special stage, their best stage result on this rally.
"We finished on a positive note with a third-fastest stage time in the first stage today, so that's heading in the right direction," said Holder.
"Two other stages were top six and the last stage, we got a puncture so had to run some mediums. Overall not such a bad day today."
Holder credited fellow Kiwi Hayden Paddon, who spent some time with Holder and Farmer on Saturday evening to help them with their pace notes.
"That made a difference today and I was able to drive, especially that first stage, with confidence that the notes were fine.
"Moving forward we've got to be able to create pace notes on these events that we haven't seen before – we have to create good notes from scratch.
"So, plenty of things to take away and to learn. We are disappointed not to have finished every stage of the rally but we got 100 per cent experience in Finland and now we prepare for Turkey to try and get a better result there."