Reigning European Rally Champion Hayden Paddon and co-driver John Kennard have climbed to the top of the 2024 standings with a third-place finish in the weekend’s Royal Rally of Scandinavia.
Paddon, driving BRC Racing’s Hyundai i20N Rally2, sat second overall entering the final stage, but tyre damage cost him significant time and allowed Mikko Heikkila through for second.
The puncture also cost the Kiwi valuable championship points on the Power Stage.
Mathieu Franceschi, who entered the ERC’s third round in the championship lead, crashed out on the same run and failed to finish.
Local hope Oliver Solberg stormed to a comfortable 38-second win.
“It’s not what we wanted to happen, but at least the result was okay because we’re back on the podium. But we lost a few points again today, and it’s a little bit unbelievable because it’s déjà vu from Hungary.
“But this is a rally; we’re still ticking up points even if we’re getting a few challenges thrown at us this year.
“There were a couple of very small impacts but nothing dramatic, nothing I can pinpoint [as the cause of the damage]. Sometimes you’ve got to have luck on our side with these things and luck’s just not on our side.
“I didn’t know Franceschi had dropped out, and that’s obviously unfortunate for him because he was doing a very good rally.
“Okay, it works in our favour in terms of the championship, but it just goes to show in one stage how quickly everything can change.”
Francechi’s DNF and Paddon’s first podium of 2024 bring the two together at 56 points atop the standings after the third of eight rounds.
Romanian Simone Tempestini is third, 16 points adrift.
Paddon entered the final day just 3.3 seconds behind Solberg but struggled with grip through the morning’s four stages, which cost him 10.4 seconds to the leader, who topped every run.
He lost a collective 7.7 seconds over the following three stages and entered the Power Stage 21.4 seconds behind Solberg and 15.4 seconds ahead of Heikkila.
The puncture cost the Kiwi 28.4 seconds on Heikkila on the final 13.18 km run and relegated him to third overall.
“I guess we start from here, and at least we’ve got ourselves back on an even footing in terms of the championship,” he added. “But we need to reset and try to get some luck back on our side.
“There are a few things we learned this weekend; we still need some more performance; we gained a little bit, but we need to find more.
The 2024 European Rally Championship reaches its halfway point next round at Rally Estonia, which runs from July 5-8.
“I’m looking forward to Estonia; I did a couple of stages in 2022 and also did it in 2018, so at least we have some experience there, so it should be good. I think we can be competitive,” he adds.
Header Image: European Rally Championship
