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Saturday | 15 Oct 2022
Runaway WRC2 winner at Repco Rally New Zealand Hayden Paddon is hoping to build a Rally1 debut into his programme for next season.
The former Rally Argentina winner starts a full WRC2 campaign in a Hyundai i20 N Rally2 in 2023 and while that title will remain his priority, the Kiwi is still chasing a shot at the premier category.
Paddon drove for Hyundai’s factory squad between 2014 and 2018 but has since been unable to find a seat in the sport’s top-flight. He had previously planned to drive a privately-entered M-Sport Ford Fiesta World Rally Car at Rally Finland in 2019 but failed to make the start after a high-speed testing crash.
“The perfect season would be a full WRC2 programme and some selected Rally1 outings,” said Paddon. “There’s some really good rallies out there where I think we could do very well.
“Events like Portugal and Sardinia, if Chile’s back or México – those kinds of medium speed, technical rallies where we have experience. Maybe on those events you can rely a little bit on the running order to offset the fact we haven’t been in the car so much.
“Like I said, the focus is the WRC2 programme with Hyundai New Zealand and we’re going to give that everything we’ve got, but it would be perfect if we could find a way into a Rally1 car as well next season.”
Paddon dominated his home WRC round earlier this month, collecting a sixth domestic title as well as finishing sixth overall and winning WRC2 in Auckland.
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