Motorsport: Paddon fourth in snowy Swedish debut

Hayden Paddon hard at work in Rally Sweden. Photo / Honza Fronek

Hayden Paddon has finished his first event on snow in fourth place.

Kiwi production world rally champions Paddon and co-driver John Kennard pushed their Skoda Fabia S2000 rally car to fourth in the Super 2000 WRC field after a challenging start that saw the pair planted in a snow bank early in the event.

Kiwi world production car rally champions Hayden Paddon and John Kennard have finished Rally Sweden - Paddon's first event on snow - with a solid fourth place in the Super 2000 World Rally Championship field.

"It's been three days of flat-out rallying on snow and ice-covered roads," Paddon said last night.

"Fourth is not a bad result, all things considered, and gives us good points on the board to start our season," says Paddon, who now lives in Montgat, Spain near the Spanish team which runs his international rally campaign. .

"Sunday's six stages went smoothly without any dramas. Between each stage we continued to try new things with the car's setup which continued our learning process about how to get the best from the Skoda. We have still been struggling to find what exactly works with the car on this surface but we have learnt a lot about both the car and the rally this weekend."

Paddon, who has two New Zealand rally championship titles to his credit as well as winning last year's FIA Production World Rally Championship admits fourth place wasn't what he was aiming for.

"But there are still a lot of positives to take from the weekend. I am now very determined that once we get back to our favoured surface of gravel for our next event in Portugal that we will have a different and more competitive package which will involve a lot of hard work and homework over the next five weeks."

Taking the eight minutes stuck in snow on Friday's third stage out of his overall time shows that the pair aren't far off the pace - and considering that it was not only their first S2000 but their first event on snow, bodes well for the coming season.

"Now the hard work begins as we build up to Rally Portugal," said Paddon.

- NZ HERALD STAFF