Hayden Paddon has emerged as the European Rally Championship favorite after a dramatic Barum Rally Zlín in which title rival Mathieu Franceschi retired and Dominik Stříteský won.
Victory for Stříteský, by 19.2 seconds over Simon Wagner, means Jan Kopecký was denied Barum victory in the ERC for the first time since 2010. Erik Cais finished third as Škoda locked out the top-four positions.
Reigning ERC champion Paddon only finished 13th, but with Franceschi bowing out on Sunday morning (and recording his second non-score of the season with just one dropped score allowed) Paddon is now in the championship box-seat with just two rounds in Wales and Poland remaining.
Paddon’s own title hopes looked to be in tatters at the end of the first day though, as the Hyundai New Zealand driver was forced to stop and change two punctures on what turned out to be Saturday’s final stage.
That dropped him outside the points to 18th overall, with title rival Franceschi up in sixth.
Paddon looked as if he was going to lose major championship ground after the first full day
But the tables turned at the start of the second day, as it was Franceschi’s turn to run into tire trouble. The Škoda driver suffered tire damage on the leg’s first stage, and incredibly picked up another puncture on the next – forcing the visibly distraught Frenchman into retirement with an insufficient number of fully-inflated tires.
Paddon’s eventual 13th place is comfortably his weakest result of the season, but coupled to three powerstage points it could be season-defining as he moved into an 13-point lead in the championship. Miko Marczyk is also in the frame, 10 points down on Franceschi.
“Disappointing weekend, we wanted to come away with more,” Paddon said.
“From a championship perspective it could’ve been worse of course but we don’t want to have to be relying on others’ misfortunes.”
All of the title drama was white noise to Czech championship leader Stříteský though. The 24-year-old settled into an early third behind compatriots Adam Březík and Kopecký, but hit the front after SS5 when pre-event favorite Kopecký stopped to change a puncture.
Dominik Stříteský drove a near-faultless rally
From there Stříteský simply checked out to record a maiden ERC win, despite spinning over the finish-line of the penultimate stage.
Wagner defeated Cais to second by just 4.8s – Cais overcoming a 20s time penalty for arriving to SS1’s time control late but setting a string of fastest times to record his first ERC podium.
Březík eventually finished fourth ahead of the leading non-Škoda driver Filip Mareš (Toyota), while 2022 ERC champion Efrén Llarena was sixth.
Kopecký also suffered a high-speed spin throughout the weekend but recovered to ninth, behind Marczyk and Hermann Neubauer, but ahead of Václav Pech who completed the top-10 on his first rally in an R5 car this decade.
