New Zealand rally maestros Hayden Paddon and co-driver John Kennard are back in Australia for round five of the Australian Rally Championship (ARC) after winning the Ashley Forest Rallysprint last weekend.
The pair lead the ARC after four rounds on 366 points from Lewis Bates and co-driver Anthony Mcloughlin(295) and Harry Bates and co-driver Coral Taylor (278). Although Paddon has a healthy lead heading into the ARC’s penultimate round, he’s not resting on his laurels.
“Our points lead is 70-something, but to be honest, my mindset going into this rally is the same as the previous ones,” Paddon told the Weekend Herald. “We’ll be going into the rally to see if we can get maximum points and not worry about any championship calculations until the last round.
“Every event you have to be on your game and take each race as it comes on its own merits. You can’t go out with a mindset of driving slower and picking up points because that’s often when things don’t work out so well. So you’re better off keeping in your natural environment and keep pushing because that’s where things gel.”
The Kiwi duo hasn’t competed on the Adelaide Hills Rally roads before. However, they have managed to get a test on roads similar to those on which the rally stages will be contested and are looking forward to the adventure. Paddon said he’s heard a lot of good things about this rally.
“The stages look a lot smoother and more flowing than some of the stages so far in the championship. They are similar to New Zealand rally stages and that’s where we are comfortable and should work well with our car.
Hayden Paddon in action with his co-driver John Kennard. Photo / Supplied
“So definitely a little bit more normal for us in that respect. We’re actually quite looking forward to this one. I think it should suit us well.
“Like most events this year, many of the stages are the same for the local competitors, but we are enjoying the challenge of pushing ourselves on unfamiliar roads,” he said.
“We had a small pre-event test to dial the car in and use the lessons from the last rally to continue that momentum. We’ll push as hard as we can and try to deliver a good result.”
This year has been busy with Paddon contesting events in New Zealand, Australia and Europe, each in different vehicles that have different pros and cons. Last weekend, he was racing a Hyundai i20 AP4 car, while this weekend he will be in a Hyundai i20 Rally 2 car.
“I’d say they have similar levels of performance, but they just do it in a different way. The Rally 2 car is, I guess, more refined and a better handling car, whereas the AP4’s probably got a bit more power.
“They sort of achieve their times in quite different ways. The AP4 car is better on fast stages and the Rally 2 is better on tight and twisty stages.
“This weekend is not really about improving the car. It’s more about dialling the car in for these conditions. So, when it’s like this we can generally go a lot lower with the car and a lot stiffer with the suspension.
“It’s more about fine-tuning for these conditions rather than trying to find improvements,” said Paddon.
The rally is on roads around the town of Mt Barker and consists of 18 stages and 160.5km split across Saturday and Sunday. Local crews have a couple of new stages to learn, while Paddon and Kennard will be competing on all stages for the first time. The Adelaide Hills Rally is the only council/shire road-based event in the 2025 ARC calendar, the other events typically use forestry roads.
Paddon and Kennard are seeded No 1 and, like the first three ARC rallies, this is a sprint round where points are available on each day.
