Paddon, who is competing part-time, finished 11th at Rally Monte Carlo on his WRC return while teammates Adrien Fourmaux and Thierry Neuville finished fourth and fifth respectively.

Since then, he has sat on the sidelines, missing Sweden and Kenya as part of a rotating roster that includes Esapekka Lappi and Dani Sordo.

Croatia is not a rally that Paddon has contested before, given it joined the WRC for the first time in 2021.

Nevertheless, the New Zealander is optimistic that he can be competitive.

“Despite it being a rally we’ve never done before, we’re relaxed and motivated,” said Paddon.

“From our homework, it looks quite a technical rally. There are many narrow stages, generally medium to fast-paced.”

The event is the first all-asphalt rally of the season, taking in 300km across 20 stages.

This year, the rally will switch from rural areas to coastal roads. Highlights include stages through mountain passes of the Kvarner Gulf and Istria.

The rally also moves from the capital of Zagreb west to the seaport city of Rijeka.

“The unique challenge with this event looks to be how much cutting there will be on the road edges, with the potential for dirt, mud and stones to be pulled onto the tarmac, affecting the grip,” said Paddon.

“For Friday’s four repeated stages, we will be the last Rally1 car on the road, so the potential cutting pollution will be a big disadvantage.

“But we’re prepared for that – there’s nothing we can do other than deal with it really, so day one is more about damage limitation before we try to recover for Saturday and Sunday’s stages when we are reseeded with a better road position.”

Paddon had very little time to get up to speed with Hyundai having been a late inclusion in its driver line-up this year.

Since Monte Carlo, the Kiwi has spent more time with the team getting acquainted.

Ultimately, seat time is the most important element – something Paddon has had very little of.

“Because of the WRC regulations, we are very limited on how much testing we get, and we won’t get a proper pre-event test in Croatia,” said Paddon.

“To help the team, the time we have had in the car was utilised in a way that we didn’t use up the team’s official test days.

“So while it’s still good mileage for us, it does mean we don’t get to drive in comparable conditions until the rally itself.

“But that’s a challenge we are up for and we’re as ready as we can be. The target is to be a lot more competitive and be closer to our teammates in terms of pace.”

The FIA World Rally Championship Rally Croatia gets underway with the pre-event shakedown on Thursday at 6pm AEST.