Pirelli Star Driver Hayden Paddon will contest Rally New Zealand and Rally Japan this year, giving himself a clear shot at this year’s Production car World Rally Championship.

Paddon, who won the FIA Asia-Pacific Raly Championship Pirelli star Driver nomination on last year’s Rally Australia, will compete on six WRC rounds under the FIA’s young driver development scheme this season.

Four of those rallies are Production rounds and with Paddon’s commitment to New Zealand and Japan, he will now contest the required six events to fight for the global Group N award.

Under the PSD banner, Paddon will compete on the P-WRC rounds in Finland, France, Germany and Britain.

The 22-year-old said: “We’ve got a very exciting year 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.

“To think we will be competing in eight of this year’s 13 rounds of the World Rally Championship is massive, but there is a lot of hard work still to be done to ensure we can extend this campaign and be a contender at every WRC event in 2011!”

Paddon starts his PSD programme with the other four drivers on the Rally of Turkey in April. In addition to his WRC commitments, Paddon is also hoping to tackle selected rounds of his domestic series in New Zealand.

For more information: Hayden Paddon Driver +64 27 318 1748 hayden@paddonrallysport.co.nz John Kennard Co-driver +64 21 267 7936 john@vicaragelane.com To join Team Green’s media mailing list, or to sign up to receive Hayden’s personal updates from each rally, please see PHOTOS: By Michael Young and FIA. www.hayden-paddon.com.

For more information:

Hayden Paddon

Driver

+64 27 318 1748

hayden@paddonrallysport.co.nz

John Kennard

Co-driver

+64 21 267 7936

john@vicaragelane.com

To join Team Green’s media mailing list, or to sign up to receive Hayden’s personal updates from each rally, please see

PHOTOS: By Michael Young and FIA.

Autosport: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81044