New Zealand rally stars Hayden Paddon and John Kennard are ready to tackle the gravel roads of the Royal Rally of Scandinavia taking place in Sweden this weekend (6-8 July) which counts as round five of the 2023 FIA European Rally Championship (ERC).
It’s the first time Paddon has competed in Sweden during summer – normally the roads around host city Karlstad are deep in snow. “We’re expecting the roads to be similar to Finland, fast but with less jumps. Overall, it’s a fast rally and we’re both really looking forward to it.”
The Kiwis know their goal of another podium finish is going to be tougher to achieve at this ERC round with several WRC2 competitors and Swedish locals like Oliver Solberg and Dennis Radstrom joining the ERC field.
“While they’re not championship rivals,” says Paddon, “these fast competitors will be challenging for overall placings which could affect the points we can earn.
“So we have to make sure we prepare well with our pre-event test with BRC Racing this week, and getting the right pace notes during recce to ensure we have a good chance to fight at the front.”
Refinements continue with the Hyundai i20 Rally 2 car which is prepared and run by Italian team BRC Racing. “We will take a similar package with the car as the previous two gravel ERC events and fine-tune it for the conditions during our pre-event test.”
The rally schedule sees Paddon and Kennard do recce on Wednesday and Thursday morning, then the all-important 4.43km qualifying stage on Thursday afternoon, the results of which are used to help set the starting order for leg one. The rally gets underway on Friday with four stages run twice that day over 106.8 competitive km. Saturday also has four stages run twice, including the famous Colin’s Crest stage as the points-scoring power stage with another 76.4 km of competition, for a total of 182.60 km.
Paddon and Kennard go into the Swedish ERC round with 113 points in their respective driver/co-driver championships. Martin Sesks is in second place on the drivers’ points-table with 83 points. The winner of this round earns 30 points with another 5 points available to the winner of the power stage, so there’s plenty on the line for Paddon as he looks to maximise his championship position at the last gravel rally of the 2023 ERC season, ahead of the three final tarmac rounds.
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