New Zealand's best rally driver Hayden Paddon has been busy despite not contesting the World Rally Championship full-time.
He's recently returned from a four-race programme in Europe and is back in action at the Ashley Forest Rallysprint this weekend.
Paddon won the event in 2019 in his Hyundai i20 AP4car. This time, he's competing in his Paddon Rallysport-built and developed Hyundai Kona EV rally car, which he drove to victory in the Waimate 50 Motorsport Festival last October.
Paddon's next big goal is the Kiwi round of the WRC (September 29-October 2) in the WRC2 category.
He and his team are preparing the Hyundai i20 N Rally 2 car he picked up in Europe for the WRC round in and around Auckland.
"The car and spare parts are all back [in New Zealand] and ready to go — well, ready to test anyway," Paddon told the Weekend Herald.
"We've still got a bit of testing and work to do on the car and we'll be bringing it up to Tauranga for some more tests in the run-up to the WRC.
"It's pretty busy at the moment with getting the EV ready for Ashley Forest and getting the Rally 2 car sorted for the WRC round. The team has sort of been split in two to try and get everything done in time.
"Right now, it's almost stupidly busy but I thrive on that sort of thing. The rest of the team have been great, taking everything in their stride. Everyone knows what we're doing and we can all take a holiday when it's over."
Paddon picked up his new rally car just days before his first event at Rally Latvia and catching Covid ruined any further development during Rally Finland.
"The car was undrivable for me in Latvia, which we have sorted now, but we've gone in a direction that has compromised the car's performance. Now we have to find more car performance while keeping car comfort.
"Basically, we have to strip the car back to its bare shell while in New Zealand and start again for next year.
"For the WRC here in New Zealand, we're just keeping with fine-tuning the car and working on a new suspension set-up. That's about all we can do for now. We also know the car is about 50kg overweight but we can't do anything about that now."
Hayden Paddon's rally car. Photo / Supplied
New Zealand boasts some of the world's best gravel roads for rallying, which allow drivers to dance from camber to camber and don't have the rocks, snow, ice and ruts that mar other international rallies.
"We're here to win [the WRC2 category] but the competition is going to be tough. Shane [van Gisbergen], Harry Bates and Ben [Hunt] will be strong.
"There will be a part of me that will want to compete against the slower WRC1 cars but we still have to take a measured approach.
"The roads are iconic and the best in the world. I enjoy Whaanga Coast, but I enjoy the Te Akau stages more, as they are probably more of a driver's road."
