No WRC action for Kiwi Paddon
Hayden Paddon doesn’t have a drive for the World Rally Championship in 2019, with nine-time champion Sebastien Loeb joining Hyundai Motorsport in his stead.
‘‘It’s certainly not easy to say it, but there will be no WRC for us due to there being no opportunities,’’ Paddon said in a video statement yesterday.
‘‘We’d like to thank and apologise to all our fans, supporters, and everybody who helped make this incredible journey possible.
‘‘The last few months have mentally been very difficult. There’s obviously been many discussions in the background and we’ve been promised and told many things which haven’t come to fruition.
‘‘We were made aware of the Sebastien Loeb decision yesterday and after that we were offered just one rally, which in everyone’s best interests is not an option for us.’’
Paddon only drove for Hyundai at seven of the WRC’s 13 events in 2018, with his best finishes a second in Australia and a third in Turkey. He finished eighth in the drivers’ championship, while his team finished second in the constructors’ championship.
‘‘We did everything that was asked of us this year, we tried to play the team game, we scored the second most points in the team per rally started,’’ Paddon said.
‘‘We tried to do things in an honest and loyal way and I think we can be proud of that and hold our heads high.
‘‘Naturally I’m obviously disappointed to be in this position, but at the same time I also understand that can be the reality of professional sport and that’s just the way it is at the moment.’’
Paddon said he’d had a lot of people asking why he hadn’t explored other options.
‘‘We have, but the reality is that there simply aren’t that many opportunities in the WRC at the moment. There’s eight, maybe 10 seats available so options are few and far between.’’
He said his time with Hyundai over the past five years – which included one race win, at the Rally of Argentina in 2016 – had been ‘‘an incredible journey with incredible memories’’.
‘‘It was 20 years of hard yakka to realise a dream to get to the WRC. Certainly there are some things I feel we still could have achieved, but they will just have to go in the what-if pile.’’