Hayden Paddon has announced he will compete in all 12 of the 2015 FIA WRC events, from Rally Sweden onwards, behind the wheel of the third Hyundai Motorsport–prepared Hyundai i20 alongside teammates Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo. Rally Sweden gets underway from Karlstad in Central Sweden on February 12.
Photo: Michael Vettas
John Kennard will continue as Paddon’s co-driver as the duo take on the world’s best rally drivers after their extremely successful 2014 WRC debut. They contested six WRC events with Hyundai, scored WRC drivers’ points on five events, and won their first stage in the RallyRACC – Rally de Espana.
The Kiwi pairing have just returned to Europe to carry on testing the Hyundai before Rally Sweden, which will be the second time he has contested the event.
Photo: Michael Vettas
“The first part of 2015 will remain a learning curve as we will be competing on events that we have little or no experience of, but this is an exciting challenge, and with each and every event comes greater knowledge of the car and our capabilities,” Paddon explained.
We are told that as the year progresses and the team has more experience at that level of competition they will really start to push their skills — and the Hyundai — to the limit.