PADDON RELISHING M-SPORT CHANCE WITH TWO OUTINGS
Kiwi will tackle GB round in second tier before returning to top flight for Australia
Hayden Paddon says the intensity of R5 competition at next month’s Wales Rally GB doesn’t bother him – he’s focused on the bigger picture of landing a full-time return to the World Rally Championship.
The Kiwi was confirmed as an
M-sport driver for both the British and Australian rounds of the series, driving a Ford Fiesta R5 Mk2 in Wales before finally getting around to start a world championship round in a Fiesta WRC in New South Wales. Paddon had been scheduled to compete at Rally Finland before a testing accident ruled him out of the August event.
Paddon’s news was confirmed last week, when he was in Austria for the latest Titansrx round. The Kiwi will test the Fiesta R5 later this month and is looking forward to sampling another R5 car after driving Hyundai’s i20 at the recent Eureka Rush Rally in Australia.
Paddon will jump into the heat of a WRC 2 Pro battle in Llandudno, but that doesn’t faze him at all.
“The competition is irrelevant,” he told Motorsport News. “Obviously, I know the level of the competition is really high, but all I can do is focus on myself, my preparations, my recce, everything that I do. I’ll go to both events and do my own thing and back myself to do a good job, regardless of the competition and what anybody else is doing. It’s the same when it comes to Australia as well.
“To be honest, Wales was a bit of a bonus really. M-sport offered it to us and I jumped at the chance to drive the car and work with the team. There will be some time to test the R5 car before Wales and all of this is seat time and more experience with the engineers.”
Within days of the test accident which wrecked his chances of a Rally Finland outing, Paddon was back home working on a solution for Rally Australia in a Fiesta WRC.
“In my mind there was no doubt we had to come back and do something,” he said. “There was absolutely no way we could leave it as it was after Finland. I had to be back in the car and I’ve got there with more phenomenal support. There’s still a little way to go yet in terms of sorting the financial side out, but we’ll definitely be there.
“I’ll test the car before the event, we’re going to Spain for that test and I’m happy to say we’ll be using the test car this time.”