Paddon out prior to opening stage

Hayden Paddon’s bid to make it five wins from five starts in the Production Car World Rally Championship is over after his Subaru Impreza developed an electrical fault at the service park in Salou this morning.

Paddon, who secured the PWRC title with victory on Rally Australia last month, failed to head out on the road section to the opening stage of RallyRACC-Rally de Espana this morning due a throttle-related electrical glitch.

The New Zealand World Rally Team driver said: “The team worked franticly to replace all the related parts but to no avail as we ran out of lateness time. It is certainly a strange one as last night the car was perfect after we drove it over the start ramp, but then from this morning the throttle has not worked at all.

“I am absolutely gutted that we have not got any stage miles in but nevertheless we will try and fix the car today to rejoin for tomorrow’s Tarmac stages. Despite having the championship wrapped up I was really looking forward to get back behind the wheel and show more speed than we had from previous rounds. But sometimes you have to take the good with the bad and we just have to learn from what has caused this problem.”