With the first round of this year’s FIA World Rally Championship about to start in Sweden, the line-up of top-class contenders in the Production Car category highlights the many talented drivers in this field also heading down-under in May for Rally New Zealand.

Reigning FIA production world rally champion Armindo Araujo returns to defend his title this year, taking on two-time winner Toshihiro Arai and top New Zealand driver Hayden Paddon, among others.

The Production World Rally Championship (P-WRC) is for ‘traditional’ Group N4 cars, essentially rally cars of near-showroom specification, explains Paul Mallard, general manager of Rally New Zealand.

“The Group N category cars eligible for P-WRC have four-wheel-drive and two-litre turbocharged engines, exactly the same as the top tier of our local series, the New Zealand Rally Championship.

“This year, nine of the 13 WRC rallies, including Rally New Zealand, this year count towards the P-WRC. Participation in six of the nine events is mandatory, with entrants nominating their six before the start of the season.”

Regarded by many as New Zealand’s best hope of seeing a local driver competing in the full World Rally Championship in the near future, Geraldine’s Hayden Paddon has recently announced he will be contesting the full number of six required P-WRC rallies.

Paddon, with co-driver John Kennard, competes in four P-WRC events as one of this year’s Pirelli Star Drivers, a global competition which provides five young drivers from around the world with a nearly NZ$ 1 million (500,000 Euro) international campaign. With the support of the Rally New Zealand Rising Stars International Award, Paddon has been able to put together the funding to compete in two additional P-WRC rounds, Rally New Zealand and Rally Japan, to ensure he contests the required six P-WRC rounds.

"A very exciting year lies ahead for us, and being able to put a full PWRC campaign together, over and above our existing Pirelli Star Driver programme, is a dream come true," says Paddon, the 2008 and 2009 New Zealand rally champion. Assuming Paddon completes the six P-WRC rallies, he will be the first New Zealander to have achieved this significant effort on the world stage of rallying.

The FIA has already confirmed 17 entries for this year's P-WRC to date, with eight, including Paddon, heading for New Zealand in May. Marc de Jong, the man responsible for the commercial development of WRC support championships, felt revised technical criteria for this year's series could lead to at least 20 by the final registration date in March.

“After the late decision to split the P-WRC and S-WRC we've seen an enormous upsurge in entries because people are recognising here's a world title to be had with cars that are reliable and readily available,” says de Jong.

“This has attracted a really wide variety of drivers. Armindo Araujo is back to defend his title in a Mitsubishi, while Toshi Arai is probably the leading Subaru entry and the only driver to have won two titles in recent years. There are also a number of younger challengers including the five Pirelli Star Drivers and Martin Semerad, one of the 2009 Pirelli Star Drivers who is back this year with the Czech National Team.”

De Jong says the P-WRC continues to have great appeal among world rally competitors. “It was first run in 1987, which makes it the oldest and most established of the WRC support championships. It’s also the only major championship in the world that’s exclusively for traditional Group N cars - in other words four-wheel-drive turbocharged Mitsubishis and Subarus. This year, the FIA has split Super 2000 cars away from these cars. So if you’re driving a 'traditional' Group N car this is the best championship in the world - no question about it.”

Also of note is two-time Norwegian rally champion Anders Grondal in the new Prodrive-built Impreza N2010 with the only female co-driver in the P-WRC Veronica Engan. Kiwi Subaru fans will be disappointed not to see this new-spec Subaru rally car down-under this year.

With the entrants registered for Rally New Zealand marked *, the P-WRC entry list currently comprises:

* Driver, Country, Car, Entrant
* Toshi Arai*, Japan, Subaru Impreza WRX STI, Subaru Team Arai
* Armindo Araujo, Portugal, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO, Ralliart Italy
* Giorgio Bacco, Italy, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO
* Miguel Baldoni*, Argentina, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO,Miguel Angen Baldoni
* Fabio Frisiero, Italy, TBC, Hawk Racing Club s.r.l.
* Nicholai Georgiou*, Lebanon, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X, Pirelli Star Driver
* Anders Grondal , Norway, Prodrive Impreza N2010, Anders Grondal WRC Rally Team
* Peter Horsey, Kenya, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X, Pirelli Star Driver
* Gianluca Linari*, Italy, Subaru Impreza WRX STI , Gianluca Linari
* Reijo Muhonen, Finland, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO, Reijo Juhani Muhonen
* Gabor Mayer*, Hungry, Subaru Impreza WRX STI, Gaboko Hungary ASE
* Paulo Nobre*, Brazil, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO, Palmeirinha Rally
* Hayden Paddon*, New Zealand, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X, Pirelli Star Driver
* Alex Raschi, San Marino, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X, Pirelli Star Driver
* Wang Rui, China, Subaru Impreza WRX STI, Shanghai FCACA Rally team
* Martin Semerad*, Czech Republic, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO, Czech National Team
* Ott Tanak, Estonia, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X, Pirelli Star Driver

The FIA may consider registrations until 9 April 2010, subject to agreement and availability.

Rally New Zealand takes place from 6 to 9 May, 2010. Its home-base is Auckland with the main service park at Queens Wharf. The rally route takes in Whangarei and Kaipara on Friday as well as a super special stage in the Auckland Domain Friday night. Saturday’s stages take competitors to Franklin and North Waikato before Sunday’s final stages take place around Raglan with the iconic Whaanga Coast stage again a feature. Information is updated regularly on www.rallynz.org.nz where fans can enter a competition to win a ride in a rally car during the event’s official shakedown stage on 6 May and sign up for regular event newsletters.

Media: Rally New Zealand  Photo:  Euan Cameron