Hayden Paddon has explained his change in attitude towards competing in the World Rally Championship, as he prepares to return for Hyundai at next month’s Rally Croatia.
The Kiwi is back on tarmac, having placed 11th overall at the season-opening Rally Monte Carlo in January.
Paddon is sharing the Korean manufacturer’s third seat with Esapekka Lappi and Dani Sordo, with Lappi having taken the wheel for the Sweden and Kenya events.
Rally Croatia, running from April 10 to 13, marks another milestone in the 38-year-old’s shock recall to the WRC after eight years away.
Paddon’s first stint, which ended in 2018, had both astronomical highs and lows. In 2016, he became the first New Zealander to win a WRC event at Rally Argentina. However, he crashed out of his next two rallies, eventually recovering to finish fourth overall.
The next season represented a very different kind of challenge. In the first event at Monte Carlo, infamous for its slippery back ice and tight corners, Paddon lost control and hit a spectator, who died soon afterwards.
The middle-aged man had ventured into a restricted area, and there was nothing Paddon could do.
It was a traumatic experience for the Kiwi. In January, he admitted he had dreaded returning to Monaco, and the lead-up had been the hardest six weeks of his life.
He failed to finish four events in 2017, but placed third at the season-ending Rally Australia to end the season eighth overall.
He saw 2018 as a big improvement, hitting all the team’s targets and securing three podium finishes.
He believes he should have been retained by Hyundai in 2019 and beyond. However, he was replaced by nine-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb.
Since then, Paddon has claimed two European rally titles, as well as an Australian Rally Championship crown. He also boasts seven New Zealand Rally Championship wins.
He said his mindset around WRC had evolved since his first stint ended.
“Back then, you’re young, ambitious, trying to become a world champion and taking no prisoners. Whereas now I’d say the approach is more relaxed in the sense that you’re trying to enjoy it more because it is unexpected that we’re here.
“I don’t feel like I have anything to prove to anyone because we’ve been able to achieve a lot over the past 10, 12, 14 years. I’m at a stage in my career where I’m proud of what we’ve achieved.
“It’s just a matter of treating this opportunity as a bonus. Obviously, do the best job I can because I’m still competitive, but the pressure is a very different pressure to what it was last time.”
He said the constant travel was normal, given he was used to jumping between the European, Australia and New Zealand Rally Championships during the year.
“It’s actually unusual if I’m stuck in one place for too long. I probably find that more uneasy compared to moving around a lot. The biggest change and the hardest thing going back into that WRC environment is [that] everything has to be at a higher level again now.
“How you prepare for the rally, the physical training, even when you’re in the car on the stages, the level that you have to push is that extra 5, 10% that you probably don’t normally when you’re doing European Championship or New Zealand Championship.
“It’s probably just bringing myself back to an elite level, which I wasn’t anticipating that I was going to have to do. So it’s a bit of a mindset shift in that respect.”
Paddon has spent most of the past two months in New Zealand, helping his team prepare the cars for a busy home season. He recently returned from Croatia and France, where he spent two weeks in development testing with Hyundai, focusing on the i20 N Rally1’s endurance and durability.
It will be the first time the 38-year-old has competed at Rally Croatia, but he said the dry roads would feel more straightforward than Monte Carlo’s icy surfaces.
“It is a bit more of a traditional tarmac rally, but it’s still not an easy one. From all the homework we’ve been doing so far, we can see the stages have a lot of cutting involved, which then means there’s a lot of pollution that gets dragged out onto the stages, and obviously, our road position for the first day won’t be good.
“So it does mean we are going to have to take a bit of pain to begin the rally and then hopefully try and recover after that.”
Given how different the conditions will be, Paddon admits there is little he can draw on from his return at Monaco.
However, he feels a little more accustomed to the WRC setup.
“Just getting back into that environment, being comfortable in the car in terms of the functionality, the switches, the seating positions, all these things that are quite different. Getting to know the team personnel because it all happened so quickly.
“Going into Croatia, we can hit the ground running somewhat now.”
He is hopeful of getting a third and even a fourth WRC rally in a Hyundai seat this season.
“They are rally by rally, so it does put a little bit of pressure on to perform to try and open up other opportunities. But I think the team is realistic, and I’m also realistic. The events assigned to us are not our strongest events; there’s no denying that. But that’s the opportunity that’s been given to us, and you take it with both hands.
“We’re not going to sit back and complain, it’s just a matter of making the most of it and if it does lead to another one, then great.”
Nathan Limm has been a journalist with Newstalk ZB and the NZ Herald since 2020. He covered the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in 2023, hosts The Big League Podcast and commentates on rugby and netball for Gold Sport.