Ahead of Sunday’s deciding leg, Paddon leads
Andrea Mabellini by 6.8sec with title rival Mathieu Franceschi languishing in
fifth place.
If the current positions remain unchanged,
Paddon will take ERC title gold for the second year running with a margin of 35
points aboard his Pirelli-equipped Hyundai i20 N Rally2.
“Being clean and precise is probably the key,”
said the New Zealander, who set the quickest pace on five of Saturday’s seven asphalt stages. “I think
when you start pushing you start over-driving and losing time. Obviously, we’re
carrying extra weight with the extra tyres, there’s more in it but we’re quite
comfortable doing what we’re doing at the moment.”
While Paddon has excelled in southern Poland,
Franceschi, who opted to go first on the road, struggled with handling issues,
particularly during the morning loop when low ambient and ground temperatures
made the low-grip stages even more precarious.
Having bagged his breakthrough ERC podium on
the last round in Wales, Mabellini reached the midday service halt at the Silesian
Stadium 1.0sec behind Paddon on the back of a fine performance for Team MRF
Tyres. Although the Italian slipped back during the afternoon in his Škoda
Fabia RS Rally2, he remains firmly on course for a second consecutive runner-up
result with team-mate Simone Tempestini 18.7sec behind in third.
Miko Marczyk, who won the Katowice Super
Special Stage on Friday evening, dropped from third to
fifth when he went off the road nearing the finish of SS3. But hit back to
cement fourth place at close of play.
“We were off in the gravel part on the last
corner, it was very muddy and it was fortunate we come back after some seconds
of loss,” said Marczyk, who is currently third in the ERC championship
standings. “It was a long right corner that tightens, the finish of the gravel
part. It was muddy, I was already opening the throttle and I lost the position
from the road to the outside, my fault.”
After his AMD Motorport team made multiple
set-up changes to his Michelin-shod Fabia RS Rally2 at midday service to “have
more precision”, Franceschi demoted Grzegorz Grzyb to fifth on SS7 with Grzyb
falling to sixth ahead of Jon Armstrong.
Armstrong’s bid for a breakthrough ERC
podium suffered an early setback when his Ford Fiesta Rally2 lost power before
the two-kilometre mark of SS2. The Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy driver was
also delayed on SS3 with a half-spin. But he showed what might have been on SS4
by banking his second ERC career stage win despite running wide nearing the end
of the Gmina Jasienica stage. He then repeated the feat when the stage was
repeated in the afternoon.
Yoann Bonato (Citroën C3 Rally2) is eighth
on his comeback from serious injury followed by Polish championship leader
Jarosław Szeja and Zbigniew Gabryś.
SS7 was red-flagged after Meirion Evans
crashed his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 at high speed. Although he and co-driver
Jonathan Jackson were uninjured, with the road blocked at the 15.6km mark,
rally officials were forced to stop the action.
Sunday’s deciding leg of the 2024 ERC
season covers six stages over a competitive distance of 81.56 kilometres. The
action begins with the 11.45 kilometres of Marklowice Górne from 08:55 local
time with the Silesian Voivodeship Power Stage due to get under way at 16:05.
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