Kiwi rally stars Hayden Paddon and John Kennard wrapped up WRC Rally Japan with a clean seventh place finish.
It’s been a rally of two halves, says Paddon of the seventh round of the 2026 FIA World Rally Championship which took place 28 to 31 May in and around Toyota City, to the west of Tokyo.
While judging tyre choice for Friday’s six stages proved trickier than expected, the Kiwis were determined to keep learning and improving on their third event with Hyundai Motorsport in the Hyundai i20 Rally1 car.
“It didn’t start too well on Friday, but we were able to make some setup changes overnight and get some good improvements for Saturday and Sunday,” says Paddon, who like all competitors spent Saturday trying to manage tyre wear in hot temperatures.
“This meant we were a lot closer to our teammates in terms of stage times and overall results.
“In the end, to finish seventh is still a good job done. I’m not sure the rally would have ended any differently even if it had started more positively. At the end of the day, we got the car to the finish on another rally we hadn’t done before when we’re still learning more about the car all the time. No scratches, no damage, a clean finish. We can tick a lot of boxes in competing here, where we enjoyed running a Rally1 car on tarmac for the last time.”
With Hyundai Motorsport still to announce which of their third car drivers will compete in the remaining 2026 WRC events, Paddon acknowledges that the events that he and Kennard contested have been probably three of the most challenging tarmac rallies for them.
“There’s no secret in that, but with each rally – Monte Carlo, Croatia and here in Japan – we’ve been trying to take the challenges in our stride and do the best we can. We’ve kept improving, our speed’s improved with each rally and we’ve secured a couple of good results. I think we’ve done everything that’s been asked of us. So now we look forward to the next steps.”
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Header Image: Tayler Burke
