Eventful Czech rally sees Paddon extend ERC lead
New Zealanders Hayden Paddon and John Kennard have extended their lead in the 2024 FIA European Rally Championship, despite finishing in a relatively low position of 12th at Barum Czech Rally Zlín, which ran 16 to 18 August.
The Kiwis always knew the sixth ERC event would be challenging given the bumpy tarmac stages with unpredictable grip which were made even more unpredictable with the arrival of forecast rain showers.
BRC Racing Team drivers were tenth fastest in Friday night’s late running of the hugely popular Zlín superspecial stage, they then came through Saturday morning’s four stages holding seventh place overall and 13 seconds off their main championship rival, Frenchman Mathieu Franceschi.
“We always knew it was going to be tough as the Czech Rally is one of the most challenging on the ERC calendar,” says Paddon. “We focused on trying to have a clean rally and make no mistakes, thinking about our own game.
“It was all going reasonably smoothly until a big rain shower on Saturday afternoon. We had a couple of rain tyres in the car so put them on, then unfortunately had two punctures in the same stage (SS8). We stopped to change the first puncture but later in the stage had another puncture which we had to drive out on. That cost us the best part of four minutes and dropped us down to 18th in the standings and out of the points.”
Throughout Sunday’s six tarmac tests, the pair fought their way back up the leaderboard, improving a position stage by stage until they held 12th place by the rally’s end to get back into a points-earning position. The third fastest time on the bonus points-earning power stage netted them a very welcome three extra points. Paddon now has 95 points to Franceschi’s 82 with two rounds to go.
“Sunday was all about damage limitation,” says Paddon, “as we tried to get back into the points for the top 15 finishers. We were able to do that which was great. We also pushed as hard as we could on the power stage to get some bonus points which we were also able to do – third place on the power stage was a good result to come away with. Considering Franchesci’s retirement, which is obviously very unfortunate for him and not what we want to see for any of our competitors, but it puts us in the position where we were able to salvage some points from the weekend and take the positive of extending our championship lead.”
BRC Racing Team Principal Gabriele Rizzo says: “Incredible weekend with the breathtaking up and down that a rally event like this can offer. As I told before the event, Barum Rally is by far the trickiest tarmac event of the season and the unpredictable weather added further drama to the storyboard. I was right when I was saying that to approach these stages it's needed great respect and humility and every time this did not happen you get severely punished. It's what occurred to us in the SS8 were we picked up a double puncture that put out of contention of the top positions. But our strongest point as a team together with Hayden and John is a fierce never give up attitude and the Sunday recovery culminated with a superb 3rd in the power stage, in front of many locals, that pays off with extra championship points. Despite everything, we leave from here increasing our lead in both standings, drivers and team, that was our main target before the event. A big thank you to the team as it was again a perfect weekend for them and for the reliability of the car”.
Next up is the 30 August to 1 September running of Rali Ceredigion in Wales. It’s an event Paddon has done once before but in a different car and with a different team and co-driver, so there’s plenty to work on as he strives to secure his second ERC title.