{"id":169979,"date":"2025-12-05T19:40:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/169979\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T19:40:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:40:16","slug":"wrc-news-paddon-ends-eight-year-wait-with-shock-wrc-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/169979\/","title":{"rendered":"WRC news: Paddon ends eight-year wait with shock WRC return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2018AUSTRALIA_FD_186.jpg\" alt=\"Paddon ends eight-year wait with shock WRC return\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHayden Paddon during the 2018 Rally Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Hyundai has announced Paddon as part of its 2026 line-up, and will join the Korean manufacturer at the season-opening Rally Monte Carlo.<\/p>\n<p>It will mark the first time since 2018 that Paddon has competed for the factory Hyundai team.<\/p>\n<p>The opportunity to join Hyundai comes after Ott Tanak announced his sudden retirement from WRC, leaving one of its seats vacant.<\/p>\n<p>Thierry Neuville and Adrien Fourmaux will compete full-time for Hyundai. Paddon will compete part-time, sharing the team\u2019s third entry with Danni Sordo and Esapekka Lappi.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of emotion \u2013 a mix of excitement, anxiety and just wanting to get going,\u201d said Paddon, who will reunite with co-driver John Kennard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the best way to describe getting the call-up from Hyundai Motorsport to return to the World Rally Championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s certainly not what we expected but we\u2019ve never given up with all the programmes we\u2019ve been doing over the last eight years all over the world.<\/p>\n<p>Paddon made his last start in 2018 with Sebastian Marshall, finishing second in the season-ending Rally Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Paddon tried to return to the WRC in 2019 with Ford M-Sport at Rally Finland, but failed to make the start after crashing in the pre-event test.<\/p>\n<p>A second attempt at Rally Australia was over before it began due to bushfires that ravaged New South Wales.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, Paddon has plied his trade in the FIA European Rally Championship, his home New Zealand Rally Championship, and Australian Rally Championship \u2014 winning them all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s massive,\u201d said Paddon of his return.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA pinch yourself moment to think that eight years after we were last in the WRC, we\u2019re going back. That\u2019s pretty unheard of.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo many people believed in us for so many years. Of course, we\u2019re going to take this opportunity with both hands and do the best job we can and see what we can make of it.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Paddon thanked his supporters, many of whom have travelled with the rally driver around the glob.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s great to continue this partnership with John and it\u2019s also great to see our loyalty to the Hyundai brand, which started 12 years ago, has helped create this opportunity,\u201d said Paddon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m hugely thankful to so many people to make this happen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously there\u2019s a lot of work to do in a short space of time as we head into rallies that we don\u2019t have so much experience of and not necessarily rallies that you\u2019d call favourites but we\u2019ll take the opportunities we\u2019re being given make the most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.parcelprotect.com.au\/deliveryrun\/?utm_source=Speedcafe&amp;utm_website=EDM&amp;utm_campaign=Speedcafe_2025\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"a2t-link\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"328_Parcel-speedcafe_takeover_v1_728x90\"><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/328_Parcel-speedcafe_takeover_v1_728x90.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\"\/><\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hayden Paddon during the 2018 Rally Australia. Hyundai has announced Paddon as part of its 2026 line-up, and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[109840,42,43,1732,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-169979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-hayden-paddon","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-slot4","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}