5 Jul 2015

Paddon remains fifth in Poland

8:20 am on 5 July 2015

The New Zealand rally driver Hayden Paddon remains fifth after the second day of Rally Poland.

Paddon and co-driver John Kennard started strongly with the second fastest time through the day's opening 18km stage, just 1.3 seconds off the pace set by rally leader and double world champion Sébastien Ogier.

Hayden Paddon, Poland, 2015.

Hayden Paddon, Poland, 2015. Photo: PHOTOSPORT

They continued with largely top five stage times through what became just seven special stages, rather than the scheduled eight when organisers cancelled SS14 due to crowd numbers.

They finished the day with a solid grasp on fifth place overall, 31.4 seconds behind Jari-Matta Latvala in fourth and 11 seconds ahead of their Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville.

Paddon says they had another reasonably satisfying day and he believes they can be pleased to be in the top five.

He says they started off strongly this morning with two good stages but the two leading up to lunchtime service didn't feel so good.

The Geraldine driver says the rhythm was missing and they lost some grip, which wasn't ideal.

He says he had a bit of a mental reset over lunchtime and the first stage of the afternoon went really well.

Paddon says the car felt good, the driving was clean and the time was decent.

Hayden Paddon in action in Sardinia

Hayden Paddon in action in Sardinia Photo: Photosport

The penultimate stage of the day was tougher, they ran two hard tyres on the front and he says he nearly came off the road a few times as a result of some understeer at the beginning.

Despite that, he says there are lots of positives to take from today and they now aim to defend our fifth place tomorrow.

The rally concludes with just two stages on Sunday.