Joined by veteran co-driver John Kennard, Paddon led home Toyota GR Yaris driver Lewis Bates and Anthony McLoughlin at the end of eight stages.

Paddon topped Saturday’s running by 29.7 seconds in his Rally2-spec Hyundai i20 N.

After Harry Bates tore the right rear wheel out of his Yaris in SS2 when he hit a concrete drain, Scott Pedder inherited the lead in his Skoda Fabia.

He held a 10-second lead over Paddon but suffered a puncture in SS4 to gift the New Zealander the rally lead.

All told, Pedder wound up third and nearly a minute and a half in arrears.

Paddon took his first stage win on SS5 and came up just shy of sweeping the afternoon’s stages.

“It hasn’t been an easy day for us for sure but obviously we got the result so, that’s pleasing. We certainly had to work for it this morning,” said Paddon.

“A few things sort of went against us. This afternoon, it sort of started to come back and the feeling was good but, obviously, as we can see, the pace is hot over here, so we’re looking forward to the challenge, which I’m sure is going to be all season long.

“That’s one day down. And there is obviously still another day to go. Tomorrow is very different in terms of the conditions and everything again.

“We start from scratch and reset and hopefully we can pick up where we left off this afternoon.

“I probably prefer tomorrow’s stages. it’s just a little bit easier to read and sort of gauge the conditions a little bit, but still challenging. In the end, we learned some stuff today with ourselves and the pace is in the car, so I’m sure we can take that forward to tomorrow.”

Behind the top three, Alex Rullo came home fourth at plus two minutes while Joshua Weidman claimed fifth in the first of the non-Rally2 cars behind the wheel of his Mitsubishi.

WOLF Production Cup honours went the way of Weidman while Andrew Penny claimed the ARC 4WD Classic Cup Heat win in his Subaru Impreza WRX in eighth.

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Tony Sullens was the surprise packet in sixth, taking out the ARC 2WD Cup class in a Citroen DS3. Jaidyn Gluskie was 10th and the leading ARC Junior Cup competitor.

The action resumes on Sunday with another eight stages for Heat 2 of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia Rally of Canberra on 21-23 March.