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Pirelli Star Drivers vie for two slots

Saturday morning the NAC Insurance International Rally of Whangarei and the New Zealand qualifying round for the Pirelli Star Driver award kicks off giving young drivers the chance to showcase to the world.

Pushing to set quick stage times over the event are a bumper 11 drivers under the age of 27. The 5-4-3-2-1 points scoring system for the top stage times mean competitors do not actually have to finish, but need to get in a fair amount of top times to have a chance.

There is a good spread of ages entered from Rotorua’s 17 year old Sloan Cox through to drivers in their mid 20s.

National champion Hayden Paddon has the weight of four competitions bearing down on him this weekend, but plans to just drive and see what happens.

“We want to try and repeat our 07 result here which will be no easy task,” said Paddon, outright winner of the 2007 Rally of Whangarei.

“If we get a good result in the rally then we’ll get a good result in the four different things, but I’m just going to forget about them – Not going to bamboozle myself too much!”

The top two drivers from this weekend will qualify and gain financial assistance of €3,500 to go to the final in Australia later this year. Up to two wildcard entries may also be selected at the Asia Pacific Rally Championship executive’s discretion.

Australian Brendan Reeves is driving this weekend in Emma Gilmour’s regular New Zealand Rally Championship car. Reeves has already qualified for Pirelli Star Driver by setting some impressive times at Rally Queensland last month.

Feeling a bit up against it will be the five Fiesta competitors, their two-wheel drive cars technically not able to hack the pace of their four-wheel drive counterparts.

Ben Jagger may have a slight local advantage but still admits the fall-back of running in the smaller car.

“It all comes down to the notes really in this event, whoever’s got the notes spot on will take it away. Being in the two-wheel drive it’s a bit of a downfall for us but as we all know, anything can happen in rallying,” Jagger said.

Pirelli won the tender when the World Rally Championship moved to a single control tyre at the start of 2008 and the Pirelli Star Driver initiative is the FIA’s way of giving back.

World Rally Championship commission president Morrie Chandler emphasises the importance the award has for drivers from the Asia Pacific region.

“Most of the time, particularly from countries outside of Europe, it is really hard to break your way into the European scene – so the whole of this objective is to make it possible for drivers outside of Europe to contest in the Production World Rally Championship.”

This year the final competition for each region has been aligned to a shoot-out competition to which competitors must qualify for in a nominated event.

Rally Australia will host the shootout for Asia Pacific region in early September.
BY SARAH BYLES