New co- driver joins Paddon in Portugal
Hayden Paddon and Sebastian Marshall team up this weekend for their first World Rally Championship event, Rally de Portugal.
With long-time co-driver, John Kennard side-lined due to a hip injury, the Brit steps into Paddon’s Hyundai i20 earlier than scheduled, but with both looking forward to the challenge ahead.
This is a critical rally for the pairing as Paddon seeks to improve his mediocre form this season. This will be Paddon’s sixth time contesting the classic gravel-surface rally that gave him his first win outside of NZ when contesting the Production World Rally Championship (PWRC) in 2011.
Paddon will be hoping that the weather stays dry so he can take advantage of his starting position, eighth on the road.
The gravel roads are quite different from Rally Argentina, presenting drivers with a smoother sandier surface, where rain or dry may determine critical tyre selection.
First held in 1967, Rally Portugal was one of the founding events in the inaugural World Rally Championship in 1973. This year it is based in the north of Portugal near Porto, and presents competitors with 19 Special Stages (349 km) over three days.
NZ Endurance season underway
The first endurance race of the 2017 season takes place in Taupo on Saturday. The North Island Endurance Series hosts three rounds over the mid-winter period for both one and three hour competitors while the South Island Series runs three rounds in September and October.
Favourite for the North Island series is the pairing of Simon Evans and Gene Rollinson, winners of the NZ Endurance title held at Ruapuna in March. They will pilot the very quick 2016 Audi R8 LMS which will be hard to beat, even with some speedy GT3 machinery now competing in NZ.
Missing from the entry list is the Tulloch Motorsport German built SaReNi Reiter Camaro GT3 that has been highly successful in the hands of Nelson’s John McIntyre and Hawke’s Bay driver Simon Gilbertson. It looks like they may not compete at all this season. Also noted is the lack of South Island drivers heading north, deciding to remain focused on the South Island Series. Cassidy in form in Japan It’s the third round of the highly competitive Super GT Series on Kyushu Island in Japan this weekend, with two Kiwi drivers competing.
Double Toyota Racing Series champion Nick Cassidy currently leads the top GT500 category with team mate Ryo Hirakawa, driving for the #37 KeePer TOM’S Lexus Team. The pair won the opening round and backed this up with finishing third in the second.
The Lexus LC500s’ are the car to beat this season, filling seven of the top ten places on the points table after two rounds.
Both races this season have been quite different, the first at the technical track of Okayama and the other at the high-speed track of Fuji.
The third round is held at the Autopolis located within the Aso Kujiyu National Park, and presents drivers with both fast and slow corners as well as a 50m elevation change. Also competing is Jono Lester in the GT300 class. While Lester and team mate Kyosuke Mineo finished on the podium at Okayama, poor tyre choice hindered their progress at Fuji, even though they qualified second for the race.