Hyundai hails Paddon's "performance of his career"

Paddon spent most of the rally fighting with Volkswagen aces Sebastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala before taking a lead of half a minute on Saturday after the Finn's crash.

Although that shrunk to just 2.6s before the Power Stage, he took an impressive victory in the final test to take Hyundai's overall second win and its first since Thierry Neuville's triumph in Rally Germany in 2014.

"This is a rally weekend that we will never forget," said Nandan. "Hayden has put in the performance of his career to take one of the most popular victories we’ve seen in WRC in recent times.

"His pace and commitment in the Power Stage was impressive; he and John [Kennard, co-driver] both deserve this win.

"It’s fantastic for all of us at Hyundai Motorsport. It is our second win in WRC but the first with our New Generation i20 WRC in only its fourth event."

Paddon halts VW winning streak

Paddon became the first non-VW driver to win a WRC event since last year's Rally Argentina, which was won by the Citroen of Kris Meeke.

It also meant that Volkswagen's streak of 12 consecutive victories came to an end, the German marque just missing out on winning every rally over the course of a year, which was never done before.

Said Paddon: "We drove the wheels off the car. It’s a fantastic result for me, John and the whole team. A huge amount of work has gone into the New Generation i20 WRC.

"I knew from the first test that we could win with it. I just didn’t quite expect it to be so soon. Everyone in the team, at the rallies and at Alzenau, thoroughly deserves this result."

Paddon moves up to second in the championship standings with his win, 39 points behind Ogier.

WRC one-time winners:

Driver	Car	Event
Mads Ostberg	Ford	Portugal, 2012
Dani Sordo	Citroen	Germany, 2013
Thierry Neuville	Hyundai	Germany, 2014
Kris Meeke	Citroen	Argentina, 2015
Andreas Mikkelsen	Volkswagen	Spain, 2015
Hayden Paddon	Hyundai	Argentina, 2016