Hayden Paddon: Rally Portugal

After quickly hoping on the plane after Rally Otago its now good to be back in Europe and to start the European leg of the WRC. It is also a chance for us to press the reset button and start our season here.

The day after arriving in Frankfurt, it was straight to Poland for our Poland rally tests. You may ask why Poland when our next rally is Portugal? With the logistics of all the cars and teams, we are often testing 1-2 rally’s ahead of ourselves. For Portugal, we tested here before Argentina and we are confident that we have some good settings going into the rally.

Rally Portugal this year has moved back to the north, based around the city of Porto, for the first time since 2001. When a rally is completely new like this one it gives us a better chance to be more competitive against our more experienced rivals. So we have to make the most of this opportunity and focus on writing some really good notes during recce. If we can do that and commit to them in the rally, I feel we have a good chance to try and mix it amongst the top 5. At this level that is easier said than done, but that’s my target.

It is also great that we will have a number of Kiwis and shareholders here cheering us on this weekend. Its always that little more special when you have that support and see the New Zealand flag out of the stages.

It is expected to be huge crowds here also for this rally. The Portuguese in the north of Portugal are hugely passionate about the WRC, so we are sure it will be quite some atmosphere.

Today we also experienced the local fish scene, from the fish landing on the port and through the process to it landing on the restaurant table. It was a great way to experience one of the traditions here in Porto. The other tradition here is Port wine, but I will leave that one to John. You will be able to see this video on our Youtube page Wednesday (www.facebook.com/haydenpaddonwrc).

Thanks and lets hope for a good event. You can find all the links to follow the rally on our webpage, www.haydenpaddon.com.