Kiwi rally car driver Hayden Paddon’s had another outing in his Hyundai Kona EV rally car today - this time on tarmac up Coronet Peak.
“It’s such an epic piece of road... To drive up the access road at full speed on a closed road is definitely pretty cool,” said Paddon.
Today’s event comes just one month after he debuted the vehicle at the Waimate 50.
Modifications had to be made for the Coronet Hillclimb - the EV’s first ever run on tarmac.
“It’s been designed as a gravel car so the main thing is bigger tyres, stickier tyres and lowering the car… So it’s a bit of a compromise but works for the event,” he said.
Rather than being driven by results, it was about testing its capabilities and gathering important data from their three runs in wet, windy and foggy Queenstown conditions.
“When you start with a new car like this you’ve got to test it in every scenario: gravel, tarmac, wet, dry, hot, cold," he said.
“It didn’t go quite to plan today but that’s motorsport and gives us a lot of lessons going forward.”
The team’s also still waiting on parts delayed by Covid-19, including a new battery, which is due to arrive in the new year in what Paddon said will be a "game changer".
“When you look at the whole development and what we’ve done in a year, we’ve made big steps forward. It’s just now trying to put all those bits of information into one and put it together.
“We’re doing something here that no one in Europe with the same size team and budget would even consider doing so we’re definitely punching above our weight.
"I’m pretty proud of everyone involved in this project to get where we are right now.”
Team Paddon will be back on gravel in the coming weeks for more development testing, while they wait patiently for their covid-delayed shipments.
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