Kiwi star Hayden Paddon is threatening to spoil Volkswagen’s farewell party after launching a concerted attack on the morning stages on Day 2 of Kennards Hire Rally Australia.
Overnight leader Andreas Mikkelsen (Volkswagen) has seen his overall lead pegged back to 13.6s at the hands of a rapid Paddon who alongside co-driver John Kennard have shot into second.
Paddon produced a whirlwind charge in his Hyundai i20 after the first run through the 50.8km Nambucca test, the longest stage of the rally.
Perfectly executed by Paddon and Kennard, the pair sizzled through the stage in 28:38.6s, 2.5s quicker than Volkswagen’s Jari-Matti Latvala.
Ogier was third through Nambucca in 28:51.2s as the jockeying for positions intensified with the four-times WRC champ dropping to third outright.
Running on soft compound tyres, Ogier limited the damage as he remains ready to pounce after being hamstrung by acting as the road sweeper across the opening two days.
At the completion of 14 special stages, Paddon is sandwiched between the pair of Volkswagen Polos while the Kiwi’s team-mate Thierry Neuville is fourth 23.2s behind Ogier.
Paddon was beaming after the completing of the morning loop, putting the Hyundai in a strong position to fight the VW’s all the way to the finish.
“We wanted to close the gap that’s what we’ve done. There are still some areas of improvement,” Paddon said.
“Only half the job is done and if we can do the same this afternoon it is still game on.”
Paddon and Kennard will benefit from the experience of last year and will avoid going out hard to early for the second sweep of Nambucca where they used their tyres up 15km before the end of the stage.
“I’ve learnt some lessons from that and hopefully I can put that into practice.”
Ogier was delighted with his gamble on soft tyres which has minimised his disadvantage as the road cleaner.
“This afternoon will be tough. It will be challenging on the tyres,” Ogier said.
“It was a bit of a gamble (soft tyres) but in my head I was thinking it would work.
“You can never be sure, there is always a small doubt. We didn’t lose any ground to Andreas and we completely killed Thierry (Neuville) who was behind us.”
In the ARC latest, Subaru Impreza WRX driver Simon Evans and co-driver Ben Searcy have seen their lead in the rally shrink to 7.5s over the charging Harry Bates and John McCarthy.
Bates, driving the S2000-spec Toyota Corolla his father Neal used to win his fourth ARC title eight years ago, made up more than 22s on the Nambucca run.
“The two stages (Nambucca and Valla) suit the S2000 really well,” Bates said.
“There’s a lot of fifth and sixth gear and as far as keeping the car smooth and flowing it worked really well.”
Evans reported that he was forced to switch off anti-lag and boost through Nambucca for fear of running out of fuel with the WRX running a standard 55-litre tank.
“We just ran soft tune, no boost, no anti-lag because we had no idea if we would have enough fuel or not as we had never run a stage this long before,” Evans said.
“But we know where we are now and we will be able to turn everything back on for the afternoon runs.”
The return sweeps of Nambucca and Valla will see the field return for the regroup in Coffs Harbour before SS17 and 18 through the Destination NSW Super Special stage on the waterfront.
VIDEO: Morning Stages
OVERALL: Top 20 after SS14
| POS | CAR NO | DRIVER | CO-DRIVER | TEAM | ELIGIBILITY | GROUP CLASS | TIME | DIFF PREV | DIFF 1ST |
| 1. | 9 |  A. MIKKELSEN |
A. JAEGER SYNNEVAG |
VOLKSWAGEN MOTORSPORT II | T | RC1 | 1:36:08.4 | ||
| 2. | 4 |  H. PADDON |
J. KENNARD |
HYUNDAI MOTORSPORT | M | RC1 | 1:36:22.0 | +13.6 | +13.6 |
| 3. | 1 |  S. OGIER |
J. INGRASSIA |
VOLKSWAGEN MOTORSPORT | M | RC1 | 1:36:25.0 | +3.0 | +16.6 |
| 4. | 3 |  T. NEUVILLE |
N. GILSOUL |
HYUNDAI MOTORSPORT | M | RC1 | 1:36:48.2 | +23.2 | +39.8 |
| 5. | 5 | M. OSTBERG |
O. FLOENE |
M-SPORT WORLD RALLY TEAM | M | RC1 | 1:36:55.9 | +7.7 | +47.5 |
| 6. | 20 |  D. SORDO |
M. MARTI |
HYUNDAI MOTORSPORT N | T | RC1 | 1:37:09.3 | +13.4 | +1:00.9 |
| 7. | 6 | E. CAMILLI |
B. VEILLAS |
M-SPORT WORLD RALLY TEAM | M | RC1 | 1:37:14.8 | +5.5 | +1:06.4 |
| 8. | 12 |  O. TANAK |
R. MOLDER |
DMACK WORLD RALLY TEAM | T | RC1 | 1:37:46.4 | +31.6 | +1:38.0 |
| 9. | 37 |  L. BERTELLI |
S. SCATTOLIN |
F.W.R.T. | RC1 | 1:39:48.6 | +2:02.2 | +3:40.2 | |
| 10. | 31 |  E. LAPPI |
J. FERM |
SKODA MOTORSPORT | WRC2 | RC2 | 1:40:15.5 | +26.9 | +4:07.1 |
| 11. | 42 |  N. FUCHS |
 F. MUSSANO |
NICHOLAS FUCHS | WRC2 | RC2 | 1:43:12.6 | +2:57.1 | +7:04.2 |
| 12. | 33 |  H. PTASZEK |
M. SZCZEPANIAK |
PEUGEOT SPORT SLOVAKIA | WRC2 | RC2 | 1:43:22.6 | +10.0 | +7:14.2 |
| 13. | 2 | J. LATVALA |
M. ANTTILA |
VOLKSWAGEN MOTORSPORT | M | RC1 | 1:43:46.8 | +24.2 | +7:38.4 |
| 14. | 65 |  H. BATES |
J. MCCARTHY |
NEAL BATES | ASN | 1:45:49.8 | +2:03.0 | +9:41.4 | |
| 15. | 67 | M. TAYLOR |
W. HAYES |
LES WALKDEN | RC2 | 1:48:01.8 | +2:12.0 | +11:53.4 | |
| 16. | 68 | B. MARKOVIC |
G. MACNEALL |
BRAD MARKOVIC | ASN | 1:50:59.8 | +2:58.0 | +14:51.4 | |
| 17. | 72 | T. SULLENS |
K. NEWELL |
TONY SULLENS | ASN | 1:51:40.0 | +40.2 | +15:31.6 | |
| 18. | 76 | T. CLARKE |
R. PRESTON |
TOM CLARKE | ASN | 1:51:58.9 | +18.9 | +15:50.5 | |
| 19. | 74 | A. PENNY |
R. LLEWELLYN |
ANDREW PENNY | ASN | 1:54:32.8 | +2:33.9 | +18:24.4 | |
| 20. | 70 | D. KING |
D. NICOLI |
DYLAN KING | ASN | 1:55:21.3 | +48.5 | +19:12.9 |
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