Earlier in March this year, the New Zealand rally driver Hayden Paddon announced a two-year entry in the WRC2 class on his route to a possible FIA World Rally Championship comeback and now his journey towards that will start with a local Italian rally at the end of June.
Paddon will be doing three WRC2 rounds this season in a privately owned Hyundai i20 N Rally2 car and he has planned to do the Rally Estonia and the Rally Finland at the end of the summer alongside his home rally in New Zealand as the rally makes it’s comeback to the WRC schedule this year before taking on a full-season in WRC2 in 2023.
Paddon has now announced he and his co-driver John Kennard will be doing the Italian Rally di Alba as a warm-up for the upcoming WRC2 campaign, they will be competing for the Hyundai Motorsport Italia team in a Hyundai i20 R5, a team he was involved with at the 2015 edition of Rally Legend in San Marino.
Europe here we come! Our Europe campaign starts with Rally Di Alba, 24/25 June. A round of @TerSeries and Italian championship, @JKCoDriver and I are looking forward to our first tarmac rally since 2017, reuniting with @hmirally team and their Hyundai R5. Can’t wait! @HyundaiNZ pic.twitter.com/YXDklyPPOu
— Hayden Paddon (@HaydenPaddon) May 9, 2022Paddon competed last time in WRC2 for M-Sport Ford at the 2019 Wales Rally GB where he came fourth in class and since then Paddon has developed an all-electric Hyundai Kona rally car that he has competed in some local events with.