MOTORSPORT: Kiwi’s glory denies VW record

New Zealander Hayden Paddon has notched his first win in the World Rally Championship – and the first by a Kiwi in its 43-year history – in Hyundai’s New Generation i20, denying Volkswagen its dream of going a year undefeated.

And Australian-based Kiwi V8 Supercar driver Shane Van Gisbergen has won the opening round of Europe’s Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup at Italy’s Monza circuit in a McLaren 650 S GT3.

Will Power was nudged out of a podium at today’s IndyCar round but moved up another place in the championship, to seventh, as he gets his campaign back on track after missing the opening race in Florida.
One of Power’s three Penske teammates, Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, won the latest round at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama – his second straight victory, and he leads the series with twice as many points as Power with the next two races at Indianapolis – a ‘Grand Prix’ on the road course there, then the 100th Indy 500.

Four-time champion Simon Evans leads the Australian Rally Championship after the first round in Western Australia, but only by one point – the bonus point for winning the most stages of the Forest Rally in his aged Subaru Impreza WRX STI after he and youngster Harry Bates in a Super 2000 Toyota Corolla shared the two heat wins.

Birthday boy conquers elements and rivals

Hayden Paddon turned 29 last Wednesday, but his birthday present came four days later with victory in the fourth round of this year’s WRC in an Argentinean event described as “a rally of extremes – fog, raw roads and lunar landscapes”.

Paddon and 57-year-old fellow Kiwi co-driver John Kennard took the lead in the event on Saturday when Volkswagen’s Finn Jari-Matti Latvala hit a rock and rolled, then held off VW’s French triple world champion Sebastien Ogier’s challenge on Sunday.

Paddon started the final leg almost half a minute in front but fog played havoc on the opening stage and, as he battled gearbox glitches as well, Ogier had cut the gap to 2.6 seconds before the final Power Stage down a mountain.

The Kiwi won that rock-strewn finale to take an historic 14.3-second victory for the weekend.

VW had won the previous 12 WRC events with its Polo R and a 13th would have added to the  illustrious history it has created since 2013 by becoming the first manufacturer to go unbeaten for 12 months.

Paddon said he knew from the first test with Hyundai’s New Generation i20 that he could win with it.

“I just didn’t quite expect it to be so soon,” he said.

“I am sure it’s the start of a lot more to come!”

“I really didn’t think I stood a chance before the last stage after losing time to Ogier this morning.

“I gave that last stage everything I had. Tight and twisty roads like El Condor aren’t my strength but I drove the stage of my life. I can’t believe it.”

Hyundai’s only previous WRC win was in Germany in 2014 with Belgian Thierry Neuville, then its No 1 driver but now overshadowed by Paddon and, to a lesser extent, the Korean manufacturer’s Spanish driver, Dani Sordo, who was runner-up on the Power Stage in Argentina and fourth overall – while Neuville finished sixth.

It was Paddon’s emergence that ended the part-time gig Australian Chris Atkinson had with Hyundai in 2014 after his earlier five years as a full-time driver in Subaru’s factory team that was folded during the global financial crisis.

VW’s Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen was third in Argentina, more than a minute behind Paddon, while fellow Norwegian Mads Ostberg was a distant fifth in the best of M-Sport’s Ford Fiesta RSs, almost 5 minutes behind the victorious Hyundai.

“This is a rally weekend that we will never forget!” Hyundai team principal Michel Nandan said.

“Hayden has put in the performance of his career to take one of the most popular victories we’ve seen in WRC in recent times.

“His pace and commitment in the Power Stage was impressive. He and John both deserve this win.

“And we have never had a one-two in the Power Stage before, so that was just the icing on the cake.”

Paddon is now second in the drivers’ championship, but 39 points behind Ogier, and VW heads Hyundai by 36 points in the manufacturers’ championship.

Hyundai has had a podium at three rounds this season, and was fourth at the other, but the Polo R still won 11 of the 18 stages in Argentina.

However, Ogier paid tribute to Paddon after the pair had argued on Saturday night, with the Frenchman continuing to gripe about having to sweep the course for his rivals.

“He (Paddon) went absolutely all-out on the Power Stage and was simply better,” Ogier said.

“Respect for that performance.

“For me this will serve as a great motivation to once again give it my all at the coming rallies in order to get back on the top step of the podium.

“The stages were extremely difficult and rough, which is possibly why I did not risk everything.

“The last stage was incredibly rough. I had a clean drive but I didn’t dare take the maximum risk because there were big ruts.

“Well done to him (Paddon) – he did a great job on the last stage.”
VW’s departing motorsport director Jost Capito – he’s bound for the McLaren Formula 1 team – said Rally Argentina had been “a fantastic advertisement for our sport”.

“We are not in the slightest disappointed,” Capito said.

The WRC now returns to Europe with Rally Portugal on May 19-22 the first of five rounds before China’s new event in September, with Rally Australia now the season finale in November.

World Rally Championship driver standings after four of 13 rounds – 1. Sebastien Ogier (France, Volkswagen Motorsport) 96 points; 2. Hayden Paddon (New Zealand, Hyundai Motorsport N) 57; 3. Mads Ostberg (Norway, M-Sport Ford) 52; 4. Andreas Mikkelsen (Norway, Volkswagen Motorsport II) 48; 5. Daniel Sordo (Spain, Hyundai) 44; 6. Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland, Volkswagen) 27.

WRC manufacturer standings – 1. Volkswagen Motorsport 117 points; 2. Hyundai Motorsport 81; 3. M-Sport Ford 62; 4. Hyundai Motorsport N 49; 5. Volkswagen Motorsport II 45.

Young Bates and veteran Evans one-all

Harry Bates has driven barely a handful of rallies, yet he won the first heat of WA’s Forest Rally and the vastly more experienced Simon Evans the second heat.

Evans admitted that “the young fellas”, Bates and his co-driver John McCarthy, surprised him and his co-driver, Ben Searcy, in the first day of forest competition around timber town Nannup after Friday night’s opening stages at Busselton’s Barnard Park.

Evans said he had been jolted into action when someone told him “Harry’s kicking your butt.”

After the 2008 Super 2000 Toyota Corolla took the first heat by 1.1 seconds, Evans in his much older Subaru Impreza WRX STI reversed the order Sunday, taking the second heat by a much greater 41.8 seconds.

That left the two tied on points, but Evans leads the championship courtesy of the bonus point for the most stage wins.

“Harry did a great job – he might even be better than his dad,” Evans joked in reference to Bates’ multiple national champion father Neal, who won the classic rally as part of the WA event – in a Toyota Celica with Coral Taylor.

Justin Dowel and Toni Feaver (Hyundai i20 Proto) and Molly Taylor and Bill Hayes (Group N production class WRX STI) finished the outright event on equal points in the battle for the third spot on the podium.

The tie was broken by calculating the total competitive time for both combinations, with Dowel-Feaver – fifth in the first heat and third in the second – then declared third for the weekend.

Taylor-Hayes were fourth in both heats in Subaru’s official return to the ARC after more than a decade out of it.

Disaster struck Mark Pedder-Dale Moscatt on the third last stage of the event, a broken tie rod in the Peugeot 208 Maxi robbing them of an almost guaranteed podium after third place on Saturday.

Fire destroyed the Subaru of West Australian Brad Markovic, who was treated for mild facial burns at Bunbury Hospital, while his co-driver, Glenn Macneall, was unharmed.

Round two of the ARC is the National Capital Rally in the ACT on May 27-29.

‘Pretty crazy’ triumph for The Giz at Monza

Shane Van Gisbergen took the chequered flag at Monza in the Garage 59 team’s McLaren 650 S GT3 just 0.341 seconds ahead of the Mercedes-AMG of 22-year-old German Maximilian Buhk.

“He had a couple of big goes ... it was pretty crazy,” Van Gisbergen said of the pair’s battle over the final 20 minutes of the three-hour race.

“It was good to come away with a win at a circuit where we didn’t think we’d be very competitive.”

Van Gisbergen shared the McLaren with British driver Rob Bell and Frenchman Come Ledogar.

Bell went from 16th on the grid to third during his opening stint and Ledogar emerged in the lead after the first round of pit stops.

Buhk was nine seconds behind Van Gisbergen after the last round of stops and closed the gap but could not get past the Kiwi.

An M-Sport Bentley Continental was third, almost 30 seconds behind, with Belgian Wolfgang Reip – one of the computer gamer graduates in Nissan’s 2015 Bathurst 12-Hour victory among its driver combination.

A Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 with its driver trio including Alex Buncombe, a Brit who has raced in Australia with the Japanese manufacturer, was fourth.

A second Nissan GT-R run by the RJN team with Australia’s recent Nissan PlayStation GT Academy graduate, and former Australia Post courier driver, Marcus Simmons making his race debut finished three laps down in 30th and 12th in the pro-am class.

A Kessel Racing Ferrari in which Liam Talbot was one of the drivers did not finish.