Hayden Paddon fears he may have to resort to driving his older New Zealand based car for this year’s Rally New Zealand because of the huge rise in global transportation costs.
The 35-year-old Kiwi was forced to pull out of this weekend’s Rally Estonia after five stages following a positive Covid-19 test, as his incredible bad luck in WRC continues.
All being well, he’ll be at next month’s Rally Finland and following in that he’ll be one of the star attractions at this year’s Rally NZ, which begins on September 29.
However, Paddon is concerned he may not be able to drive in such a competitive car at Rally NZ, which would put a damper not only on his rally, but also the event in general.
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Paddon briefly competed this weekend in his new Hyundai i20 N Rally2, which is the car he’s looking to use next year when he competes fully in WRC2.
Joshua William Photography
Hayden Paddon may have to use his older Hyundai i20 AP4 rally car at the WRC Rally NZ later this year.
The plan was to bring this car back to New Zealand after next month’s Rally Finland, to do more work on it and drive it in the Auckland WRC event.
However, Paddon says because shipping costs have gone through the roof, caused by a number of factors, including a big jump in fuel prices and the war in Ukraine, Paddon says he might not be able to afford to bring it back.
“We want to get it home to New Zealand obviously at some point and we need to do a lot of development work on it back home before we come to Europe again,” Paddon said.
“The idea is that as soon as we can get it back home, we will.”
However, shipping costs have tripled over the last 12 months and given the limited budget Paddon is working on, he might be forced to keep the car in Europe.
“That’s the dilemma at the moment, if we can get the car home for Rally NZ,” he said.
“In a normal world we would, but right now freight costs are through the roof and that makes it more difficult.”
Jack Smith/Hyundai New Zealand Rally
Hayden Paddon had hoped to get a WRC1 car for Rally New Zealand, but Hyundai have been unable to provide one for him.
If Paddon can’t use the i20 N Rally2 at Rally New Zealand, he says he’ll have to use his older Hyundai AP4, which he first used in 2016.
“That’s the only other option we’ve got, so it’s not so easy that one,” Paddon said.
“We’re working on it every day at the moment. Initially we would have liked to have been in a WRC1 car, but that’s not possible, so now we’re working on a WRC2 car and that’s got a few logistical challenges around it at the moment.
“So we’ll keep working on that, but the AP4 is sitting at home, ready to rally, so we can make the decision quite late.”The perfect scenario for Rally NZ would have been if Hyundai brought to New Zealand with them a WRC1 factory car for Paddon to use, which their drivers Ott Tänak and Thierry Neuville will be using in New Zealand.
In an i20 N Rally1 Paddon would have been able to truly test himself against the best in the world. However, one of those cars wasn’t available.
“We’re obviously committed to the Hyundai brand,” Paddon said.
“We did talk to Hyundai to see if there was the potential of getting a car, but the global shortage of parts, supply and material just made it impossible for there to be a car.”
In 2019 he got a seat for a few events, in Finland, Britain and Australia, with M-Sport in a Ford Fiesta, which he hoped at the time would help propel him back into a full time seat with a factory team.
However, he crashed in testing in Finland and wasn’t able to take part in the rally.
At Rally GB he spun and beached his car on the first day and on the second suffered two punctures, again forcing him to retire for the day.
Then the Australian event was cancelled because of the bush fires, sweeping across New South Wales at the time.
While it’s one thing for Paddon to drive a Ford overseas, it’s a different matter to do so at Rally NZ, where he’ll have the eyes of the nation on him.
“Hyundai New Zealand has been very good to me, so it’s a two-way street,” he said.
At Rally Estonia, Paddon struggled with his i20 N Rally2, but that’s mainly because he and his team are still trying to set the car up.
He wasn’t expecting a great result this weekend and that will also be the case at next month’s Rally Finland, but the point of this European trip is to hit the ground running in 2023, when he’ll compete fully in WRC2.
“This year is about putting the building blocks in place,” he said.
“We don’t have a budget this year for testing, that’s our biggest problem, we made changes to the car, but we didn’t do testing, which is very unusual.
“There are a bunch of reasons for that and one is we don’t have the budget for it.
“This weekend is hopefully about making a step forward with the car and then do the same again for Finland, but we want to let the competition side of it naturally progress, we don’t want to go chasing things, because we’ve only got one car and a small budget.”
