Along with your co-driver John Kennard, you’re a double winner of the FIA European Rally Championship. How does it feel?
“It’s a relief. It’s certainly a bit nerve-wracking when you know you’ve got so much to lose, I don’t like driving in those situations, so I’d been counting down the stages all weekend and the rain on Sunday certainly didn’t make it any easier for us.”
Was the Power Stage the ultimate go-slow, especially after it almost went wrong on the previous stage?
“We nearly got stuck off the road and that was the reality check to go, ‘hang on, rally results are irrelevant here, it’s all about this championship’. This year means so much more because we’ve had to dig so deep this year to get the most out of myself and the car. It hasn’t been easy so to cap that off with the championship is all what we’ve worked towards.”
Were the moments during the season when you thought a second title wouldn’t be possible?
“Up until about round five I thought we had no chance this year, we were struggling a lot, I didn’t think we had the package but the team dug deep. Mathieu Franceschi put us under a lot of pressure all year, he definitely had the better first half of the season but we had a bit more consistency in the second half of the season. Consistency has been our key this year, just biding the time and being patient, which is not easy when you are a competitive person.”
To what extent was JDS Machinery Rali Ceredigion, and your epic performance there, the turning point?
“Oh yeah, 100 per cent. Since then we found something with the car and the set-up that just made it easy to drive. When you’re fast and it’s easy it’s all clicking.”
What are the chances of you going for a third title in a row, only one driver has done that before and you’re only one of four drivers to have won the championship back-to-back in 71 years?
“Don’t tell me that, I like records, I’d rather I didn’t know that! But we’ll take that and, as I said before, we never thought it would be possible halfway through the year so it’s cool. I’d love to [come back] but I’ve been funding my rally career myself for so many years now so it just gets a little hard when you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel all the time. We’ve got a lot of people supporting us and we’ve got some other things we want to achieve. But if there’s an offer that comes in and someone says, ‘come and drive our car’ then for sure I’ll put my hand up.”
Visit FIAERC.com soon part two of the Hayden Paddon ERC Take Five special.
All results are subject to final FIA confirmation.
Japan
Poland
Turkey