Hayden Paddon
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30%Born
1987 (37 years old)
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Driver
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Active
Ethnicity
White
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MotorsportTeam
Hyundai Motorsport N
2nd Team
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Like many professional drivers, Paddon’s career began in karts. Racing from the age of six, he sold his kart when he was 13 to buy a grass-track Mini. Supported by his father Chris, a club rally driver, he enjoyed success in Motorkhana in the Mini and rally sprints as co-driver to his father in a Toyota Levin.
Paddon’s first rally behind the wheel came in 2002 when he was 15. Driving his father’s Toyota fitted with learner plates, he finished fourth in class. Two seasons in the South Island Rally Championship followed, before a step up to a four-wheel drive Mitsubishi in 2005 and the New Zealand Junior and Rookie titles in 2006. He won the championship outright in 2008.
Paddon’s international ambitions were given a boost in 2009 when he won a Pirelli Star Driver scholarship to tackle the 2010 PWRC. He finished third that year, but a self-funded return in 2011 was more successful, and Paddon became the first Australasian winner of an FIA world rally title.
He returned in 2012 at the wheel of a Skoda S2000 and won three rounds, but was unable to hold on to the title. With funds low, Paddon managed just three WRC 2 rallies in 2013 before rounding off his season with eighth place at Rally de España on his first event in a World Rally Car.
Hyundai’s WRC arrival in 2014 couldn’t have come at a better time for Paddon. The team was eager to put miles on its new i20 WRC, and Paddon secured a six round programme in the manufacturer’s second-tier ‘N’ team.
Although the new car was far from perfect, he impressed with eighth places in Poland and Finland and took a career best sixth in Australia – as close as the WRC gets to his home ground.
For 2015 he is back at Hyundai, with an expanded season that includes all events bar the opening round.
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