Motorsport: Kiwi sees plans cop bump on rocky road

Hayden Paddon says it's been a season of things going wrong.

Two rocks destroyed Kiwi driver Hayden Paddon's hopes of another World Rally Championship top-three finish at Rally Finland.

Paddon and co-driver Seb Marshall broke their suspension twice in as many days.

They had to retire on day one after running wide at a corner on stage four and hitting a rock. Their Hyundai i20 WRC Coupe was easily repaired, and they returned under the regulations next day.

But another large rock 7km into the second stage of the day ended their day early.

"We were going through a blind left, into a right, when all of a sudden, I caught sight of a big football-sized rock in the road," Paddon said.

"In the split-second it took to see it, I knew it would do damage. We could not avoid it and it broke the suspension arm."

With just four stages yesterday to wrap up the rally, the pair again demonstrated the top-five pace they would have liked to have shown all weekend, racing through the first three stages amongst the front-runners. They finished the final power stage in 12th place after a mechanical issue.

"It's been one of those weekends for us," Paddon said. "After our retirements on Friday and Saturday, we wanted to approach these final stages in a positive manner and to get some time behind the wheel.

"This rally has perfectly illustrated our season, where anything that can go wrong does go wrong."

Paddon and Marshall return to WRC action in mid-August for Rally Deutschland.

He is eighth in overall standings, with four events left.