There will be no easing into his biggest season of international competition yet for New Zealand rally star Hayden Paddon as he prepares to contest the notoriously tricky Rally Monte Carlo this week.
Paddon and co-driver John Kennard launch their 14-event 2016 FIA World Rally Championship campaign at the most famous and challenging rally of them all, which takes place along the French Riviera in the Principality of Monaco and southeast France from Friday to Monday.
Originally from Geraldine, Paddon and Blenheim-based Kennard are the first New Zealand driver and co-driver pairing to contest this event.
This honour is tempered by the fact that it will be a fraught debut and Paddon (28) is under no illusions about the difficulties which lie ahead on the snowy, icy, mountainous Monte Carlo rally route.
"I would rate this one of the most challenging events on the calendar due to the wintry conditions we expect. Given we have not competed in this rally before and have much to learn about the tyre choices, potential stage conditions and narrow, winding roads, our goal is to use this event to learn for the future. It's a way to get our new season with Hyundai Motorsport started and the main goal is to finish,'' he said.
Paddon and Kennard have signed a three-year contract with Hyundai Motorsport, the team for which they have driven since June 2014, following the successes of their 2015 season.
While the Kiwis have not competed at Monte-Carlo before, they have made the most of two earlier opportunities to complete the controlled-speed, pre-event reconnaissance sessions for the rally.
Paddon said those experiences were helpful as they had some base pace notes.
"However, conditions often change a lot between recce and the rally and the job of our gravel-ice crew [which drive the rally route before the roads are closed for competitors] is more important than ever here. The biggest challenge during the rally will be translating their information of things I have not seen before and adapting to it as best I can.''
For Kennard, who is in charge of delivering the detailed pace notes of the rally route so Paddon can visualise the road ahead for maximum speed, the complexity of the conditions and information provided by the gravel-ice crew adds other considerations.
"For me the biggest challenge with Monte so far has been preparing the notes we have from recce in 2014 and 2015 with enough space for the ice note crew to add the very large amount of information they sometimes need to.
"This has meant rewriting the notes we'll re-use with less lines per page, so there's more room between. So the longest of the stages, at over 55km, has expanded from 25 to 42 pages,'' he said.
Paddon rates every special stage of the 16-stage, 377 competitive kilometre route as challenging.
"You can often start on the valley floor where it's dry, but then approaching the mountain tops or shades areas on the same stage can be complete ice,'' he said.
Tyres will make a big difference on this event and they have the option of two compounds of slick tyres, a snow tyre and a studded tyre.
"Often we will be on what is essentially a compromise tyre and you have to do the calculations based on info from our gravel-ice crew of what tyre will be best.
"You might have a 20km stage that is 17km dry and 3km snow and ice, but if you take the slick for the dry section, you will lose 30 sec/km on the ice section, so those are the considerations you're weighing up all the time,'' Paddon said.
He is eager to get his 2016 season of competition under way.
"I'm really excited for the year ahead and continuing our development on all levels. In this game we are always looking for improvements in both the car and myself and are continuing to improve my physical and mental training routines.
"I'm more ready than ever and have step-by-step goals for the year that we will be working hard towards meeting,'' Paddon said.
Paddon's Hyundai Motorsport team-mates ,Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo, will debut the new generation Hyundai i20 WRC in Monte Carlo while Paddon and Kennard will drive the Hyundai i20 WRC car they used last season.
"We have all been heavily involved with testing the new car and John and I start with the new car in Sweden [February 11],'' Paddon said.
