Inside Rally

Making their debut in a new generation world rally car in Spain will be New Zealand’s finest, Hayden Paddon and co-driver John Kennard.

Photo: D.Darrall

Paddon will take to the wheel of the Fiesta RS WRC for the first time in competition next week. Driving for the Qatar M-Sport World Rally Team, the pairing have high hopes and their skill behind the wheel could well see them challenge the front-runners on individual stage times.

It’s certainly going to be a very exciting event for us – it’s pretty amazing to have an opportunity to drive a world rally car for the first time in competition! Obviously, at the same time, that brings a lot of pressure, but we’ll put that to the back of our minds and just concentrate on doing the best job we can.

“Preparation wise, John [Kennard, co-driver] and I are lucky enough to have competed in Spain a couple of times before. We’re just working on the pacenotes and being as comfortable as we can before the start of the rally.

“Generally, the switch from asphalt to gravel is a real challenge for the drivers as you need to be able to adapt your driving style pretty quickly. For me, for example, I’ll be going from right-foot braking to left-foot braking over the course of just a few hours. That aside, next week will give us the perfect opportunity to show what we can do on both surfaces.”

As the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) ventures to the only true mixed-surface event of the season at RallyRACC Rally de España, Qatar M-Sport will showcase six Ford Fiestas on the combination stages. The Ford Fiesta RS WRCs of Mads Østberg, Evgeny Novikov, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Thierry Neuville will be joined by newcomer Hayden Paddon and the Ford Fiesta R5 of Elfyn Evans.

Photo:D.Darrall

As the only round of the season to combine both asphalt and gravel stages, the three-day fixture poses a real challenge for the technicians and crews alike. Saturday evening will see M-Sport’s expert team convert all six Qatari-liveried Fiestas from their asphalt to gravel specification in just 75 minutes.

But the real challenge for the drivers comes on Sunday morning as they strive to get back into the rhythm of gravel rallying. Being off the pace and out of sync through the final speed tests can cost valuable seconds, so the Qatar M-Sport crews will need to be on top of their game from the first loose-surface kilometre.

Al-Attiyah’s team-mate, Neuville, came tantalisingly close to securing a maiden WRC victory in France earlier this month – were it not for a puncture on the penultimate day. That said, the Belgian certainly proved that his speed has the potential to challenge for rally wins.

Unfortunately, that first victory will have to wait, but there would be few to bet against it coming to fruition in Spain. The Belgian has confidence and momentum on his side, and although admittedly focused on maintaining his second place in the championship, he and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul have already proven themselves – and the Fiesta RS WRC – to be a highly competitive combination on both asphalt and gravel.

“As the only mixed-surface event on the calendar, this rally is certainly a lot different to what we are used to. Although we’ll only be testing on asphalt, we have good experience from last year and we know from this year that we can be competitive on both surfaces.

“For a driver, the most difficult aspect is to ensure you make a swift transition from the Tarmac to gravel stages. You need to be confident in your driving and find a good rhythm. If you are not up to speed on Sunday, you can easily lose ten to fifteen seconds which – as we saw with the field being so close in France – can make all the difference.

“Our aim again is to maintain second place in the championship. We’ve seen that we can challenge for victory on many surfaces, so we will push from the beginning, but we also need to keep the championship in mind. We need to finish this event strongly, but if we are still in a position to fight for the victory on Sunday, then we will start to take a few more risks.”

Driver of the weekend. It’s tough to choose from Rally France as we saw a lot of talent by a lot of the top boys. So lets recap what happened and see which driver showed the most impressive pace and performance of the weekend.

Photo: D.Darrall

Putting aside the Battle that we had all expected to see concerning the two Sebastien’s. This weekends rally France provided us with one of the most exciting tarmac battles we’ve seen since…. well Germany over a month ago. But before then. Tarmac rallies belonged to Master Loeb. And almost any event on the black stuff was won by the first day.

However this weekend was very much different. With battles for the lead throughout the whole rally. The rally kicked off with the Power Stage, where Ogier and Volkswagen took the driver’s title. But it was Citroen’s Dani Sordo that held the lead going into day 2, with Thierry Neuville just 0.7 behind. It seemed the two would give us a bit of a repeat of Germany. As the two tarmac specialist battled it out, it seemed the pair were a level above the rest of the field. By the end of Day 2 Neuville had the lead over Sordo. The pair separated by 9.8 seconds.  This is where Volkswagens Jari Matti Latvala began to show us that talent that has been locked up deep inside for too long, as he held 3rd over night.

By mid afternoon of Day 3 the old, confident Latvala we used to see came out, and made up a place on Sordo and began to chase down Neuville. After the first loop of stages, the Belgium still held the lead by 13.1 seconds.

However in the afternoon, on SS11. Thierry picked up a rear wheel puncture, making the car hard to control, causing him to spin after a corner. overall the Qatar M-Sport driver dropped over a minute and lost the lead. Sordo managed to pick up the pace on that same stage and retook the lead over Latvala by 2.9 seconds. By the end of the day though Latvala and Sordo swapped positions on the final stage. The gaps in the top 5 had closed up at the end of Day 3. With the top 4, containing leader Latvala, Sordo, Ogier and 4th place loeb, all within just 5 seconds of the lead.

At this point any one of them drivers could have been the driver of the day depending on what they showed in the last 50km or so. But on the final day, Sebastien Loeb slid off the road and onto his roof, making it game over. Seb Ogier, suddenly found some incredible pace and another gear on his Polo R and went faster than everybody to take the win by 12 seconds from 2nd place Sordo, and Latvala who finally finished in 3rd.

Looking at the pace of the drivers over the weekend, it is without a doubt, that Qatar M-Sports Thierry Neuville was the driver of the rally. Neuville and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul were superb throughout the four-day event. Having led the field for much of the event, the Belgians were on course to secure a maiden FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) victory until that puncture. “Obviously I am disappointed having had the opportunity to take my first win this weekend, but I have to accept it. I think that we had a really good weekend and we have definitely shown that we have the speed and the car to win rallies.

“Ultimately it was my mistake – just 10 centimetres wide in one corner. Of course it’s a shame, but both ‘Sebs’ were here, and we were beating them, so I have to be happy with that. Again I need to thank the entire M-Sport team for everything they have done this weekend. This is our eleventh event in the team and we have not had a single problem with the car all season. We know that we have everything we need to secure a win this season, so now we just need to go out there and get it.”

Neuville has scored 5 podiums in a row, and 4 2nd places. Now the team are wondering what could have been, if it wasn’t for that puncture. eventually finishing the event in 4th. Neuville showed that he has the pace to win and isn’t afraid to battle at the top.

Photo:D.Darrall

Rally France, Driver of the weekend – Qatar M-Sport Driver Thierry Neuville.

The TV coverage for Rally France will once again be broadcast in the UK on ITV4.

An hour highlights will be shown on tuesday 8th at 6pm. An hour later on ITV4 +1 and then repeated on Saturday 10:40am.