Hayden Paddon: Final Day at Wales Rally GB

We have reached the end of Wales Rally GB after an eventful and trying rally. Nevertheless there are still plenty of positives to take away and finishing 7th in SWRC has given us enough points to stay 2nd in the championship, now tied with Craig Breen who won here. We also only lost 2 points to the championship leader, PG Anderson, his lead now being only 8 points over Craig and us.

Today comprised of 6 relatively short stages and a chance for us to improve the car. As expected, the smoother roads did suit us better and we were able to set some competitive times, including 4 fastest stage times in SWRC.

This coming week we have our first drive of a Super 2000 car on tarmac, as I go to Austria to test with the team ahead of Rally France. It has been a very trying year to date but I can promise you it has not come from a lack of trying. There has been a lot of hard work go on in the background, and after this event I will go back to the drawing board, break down all the details so that we can learn from it. We have to turn our season around at our next rally, Rally France in just 3 weeks. A win is a must, but in saying that first and foremost we also need to concentrate on having a trouble free rally.

A huge thanks to our BRR team who did a great job all week long, and they are all as gutted as we are with the result. But everyone is working hard within the team to diagnose what went wrong so it does not happen again.

Also a big thanks to Matthew, who is a local here that has been helping us with some logistics and weather information. It has also been great to have Greg Paul from Rallytours, along with many other Kiwis that we meet over the week supporting us. Last but certainly not least, Katie and Kate who have been keeping you all up to date throughout the week.

Thank you for all your support and I ensure you that you will see a different performance in France. There will be a lot of hard work between now and then!