Two hemispheres, three countries, three co-drivers, three tire manufacturers: it was a busy 16 days for Hayden Paddon
Photography by Belgian Rally Championship, D Harrigan Images & Tayler Burke
Words by David Evans, DirtFish Head of Media
Traversing the equator is nothing new for Hayden Paddon. He successfully campaigned the World Rally Championship from home in New Zealand and understands the demands of living life aboard an Airbus.
Even for him, the last three weeks have been a bit much. The combination of Donegal, Ypres and Queensland in as many weekends has been interesting – not least because those three rallies came with one car – the Hyundai i20 N Rally2 – but with different teams, different tires and different co-drivers.
How did it go? On paper, in terms of results, he was right in the fight for the win on his Irish debut, finished second by a whisker in Belgium and won down under in the latest installment of his Australian Rally Championship campaign.
But how did it go?
“It was good,” a typically chipper Paddon told DirtFish. “I really enjoyed it.”
Lack of sleep couldn't prevent Paddon taking third Australian championship win of 2025
That’s Hayden Paddon for you. He will happily go to the end of the earth to drive a rally car. You won’t hear him complaining about jet lag.
“Yeah,” he smiled, “I’ve been pretty good with that. I’m normally on top of it – it’s something I just deal with. But coming back from Ypres to Queensland was tough. It got me, probably for the first time. Last week I really struggled. I think, all last week, for the whole week, I probably had 20 hours sleep. I’d fall asleep really early at night, and then an hour and a half, two hours later, wake up feeling like I’d slept all night… but it was still like 11 o’clock at night, and then you couldn’t get back to sleep.”
And the issue was, Australia was the one that really mattered in terms of points and performance.
“The first two events were invitational,” he said. “Australia was where the pressure was – it probably was a bit the wrong way around. But we got there.
“Donegal was a bit last-minute. I think I have five days before I was jumping on the plane and flying over there. The preparation side for Ireland and Ypres wasn’t so bad, there wasn’t so much that I could really do – I’d never done Donegal and it was 12 years since I was in Ypres, so I didn’t have any onboards to study.
“That made the recce even more important and that, to be honest, was probably the most demanding part of doing three events in a row. For three weeks, it was just watching so many videos and going back over so many sets of notes. Some of that stuff did become a little bit mentally taxing. The pressure was probably more on the co-drivers though. All three of them [Dave Moynihan in Donegal, Jared Hudson in Ypres and John Kennard in Queensland] did a fantastic job.”
Dave Moynihan was the unknown quantity for the former Rally Argentina winner. The opportunity to drive the C&M Motorsport Hyundai came after Matt Edwards elected not to drive. That left Paddon taking over the car and co-driver.
“Dave was great,” he said. “He adapted really well to my note system. I probably gave the listening part a little bit more attention because it wasn’t quite as natural, I wasn’t used to hearing his voice. There was no need to change any notes or anything like that, I understood the notes perfectly [with his accent] and at times better than the normal conversation in the car! But it was an awesome job, so much fun. I’ll definitely be back.”
Communication with Irish co-driver Dave Moynihan was no problem - on the stages at least
Crashing in Knockalla wasn’t part of the plan.
“Initially,” he said, reflecting on the left-hander that caught him out, “I was a little bit early on the brakes. I released the brakes to try and get to the right point, but I just released too much, so the actual mistake was initially by braking too early. And then, of course, I tried to correct it. It was actually a very small incident, as such, so it’s a shame it ended that way. We went to the ditch and it just fell over.”
A day or two later and the Irish asphalt had been flipped for Belgian Tar.
“I think we were closer than I expected in Ypres,” said Paddon. “I’d been 12 years ago, but I didn’t remember any of the stages, so we were effectively blind in that respect.”
So, leading into day two wasn’t part of the plan…
Paddon quickly got to grips with cuts required on Belgian event
“I thought the podium was going to be a hard game – we know how much of a specialist event it is. The car was working really well, really easy to drive, so we gave it a nudge and pushed as much as we could on the second day to try and fight with Stéphane [Lefebvre], but we didn’t have quite enough.”
Paddon lost by 10 seconds. Then headed south.
“Like I said, the sleep wasn’t ideal, but the adrenaline kicks in in the stages and you’re absolutely fine. Before and after the rally was a bit more subdued. The event itself was tricky – Queensland has always been known for being a bit rougher and it was, with a fairly high rate of attrition. It was a survival rally.
“If I’m honest, we probably didn’t have our A game there and the car didn’t maybe work the best in those conditions. I think we dodged a bullet on that one and the following rallies should suit us better.”
A third win from four Australian Championship starts moves Paddon back to the top of the table, but after three frantic weeks, what now?
The next ARC round isn’t for another four weeks (Gippsland Rally), but anybody who knows Paddon knows he’s not going to be sitting still for long.
Words:David Evans
Tags: Australian Rally Championship, Donegal International Rally, Donegal International Rally 2025, Hayden Paddon, ITRC, Rally Queensland, Ypres Rally, Ypres Rally 2025
Publish Date July 8, 2025 DirtFish
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