Motorsport: Hayden Paddon faces endurance test in Australian Rally Championship

New Zealand’s most successful rally racing driver Hayden Paddon faces one of his biggest challenges this weekend in an attempt to win the Australian Rally Championship.

The second half of the Australian rally season starts this weekend at The Middle of Everywhere Gippsland Rally. It’s the first of the endurance rallies, whereby, in order to score points, drivers must finish the rally, not just win stages.

Paddon and co-driver John Kennard lead the Australian Rally Championship (ARC) on 256 points, with Lewis Bates second (221) and Harry Bates third (192).

“Unlike the first three ARC rounds, which were sprint events where you could earn points from your finishing position each day, this is an endurance round where your points are determined by your overall place across the two days,” Paddon said.

“It’s double points in these endurance rounds, so you can’t afford to be parked up on the side of the road. This magnifies the importance of finishing the rally with no problems. There are no second chances for points on this event.

“It puts a bit more emphasis on trying to set a consistent speed throughout the early part of the rally, rather than being all about sprinting as fast as you can from stage one.

“At this point of the championship, it’s important we protect our lead and keep scoring points.

“We’re expecting a strong challenge from the Bates brothers again on stages they know well, so we’ll put our best foot forward to keep the pressure on.”

Another curveball over the weekend is the rare occurrence of night stages, with four in the Gippsland Rally. It’s the first time in more than 10 years that an ARC event includes night-forest competition.

“Doing the night stages is a bit of old-school stuff, so it’s a bit of fun. The speed you drive at night is much the same as during the day,” Paddon said.

“Okay, it might be a little bit slower,” he admitted, saying that drivers would probably be within 0.2 or 0.3 of a second slower at night, “so it’s pretty close, as the lights are so good”.

“You’re only having to deal with what you see in front of you, which is more or less what you’re doing during the day, but you’ve got less distractions outside [the] windows. However, there are potentially more surprises.

“Probably the main difference is that you’re a little bit more risk-averse at night-time – you don’t go sticking the car into a bush, or right up on the inside of a corner. You probably allow yourself just a little bit more room when you can’t see.”

A successful ARC campaign so far does not mean Paddon and Kennard are taking anything for granted. Rallying is one of those motorsport categories where there are so many variables and random opportunities for a race weekend to come unstuck.

One of the biggest challenges is to constantly keep evolving the car to ensure the rest of the field does not get a technological jump on you.

“We’re developing the car every time we do a rally over here [in Australia]. We’re taking the suspension home after each rally and developing it further and always trying to look for something a little bit extra,” Paddon said.

“We’re revitalising and revisiting some of the car set-up. You just constantly run around in circles with set-up and I’m really looking into tenths of a second but it all makes a difference.”