In February Hayden was back behind the wheel of his championship-winning Mitsubishi Evo 9 after he and his team invested more than 1,000 hours rebuilding the car after it was badly damaged in a huge crash in 2011.
The Drivesouth Rally Otago in April was the rebuilt Evo 9’s first outing, where Hayden and John took a handsome victory. Their winning margin was more than four minutes over their nearest competitors Richard and Sara Mason.
They repeated the victorious result at the NZRC’s second round – the International Rally of Whangarei the following month, with a similar four-minute buffer over second place.
In May, Hayden was able to confirm he would be heading back to Europe in July having entered in two FIA World Rally Championship events. He and John are to compete in Neste Oil Rally Finland and ADAC Rallye Deutschland, both in August, using a Skoda Fabia prepared by Austria-based Baumschlager Rallye & Racing (BRR), the same type of car and team with which the Kiwi pair completed the second part of the 2012 season.
Hayden announced his New Zealand World Rally Team had formed a new commercial partnership with Vehicle Inspection New Zealand Ltd (VINZ) in June.
The opportunity came up to contest the Ypres Rally in Belgium at the end of June in a Pirelli-equipped Ford Fiesta S2000 with Symtech Racing – before August’s two WRC events in Finland and Germany – meant Hayden and John would head to Europe earlier than originally planned.
Having won one stage and run in the top five for 13 stages during their first attempt at the specialist tarmac Ypres Rally, Hayden and John were gutted to crash out of the event on the 14th stage.
Early in August Hayden and John Kennard finished third in the WRC Rally Finland in the intensely competitive WRC2 category. Hayden described it as: “Always a great feeling to finish on the podium in Finland, the spiritual home of rallying, and finishing third today gets our 2013 WRC campaign off to a great start. It is also a relief to get back on the podium in the WRC and to be the fastest S2000 competitor over the course of the rally was also pleasing.”
Three weeks later, they secured third place in the WRC2 category again, in the tarmac German round of the WRC. They also netted eighth place overall against all the WRC competitors.
Returning to New Zealand, Hayden and John managed to get to the end of September’s Possum Bourne Memorial Rally, after landing heavily after a jump on the first stage. They took the NZRC’s points’ lead despite Hayden’s Stadium Cars Evo 9 sustaining damage which hampered him through the remaining 10 stages of the one-day event. Thanks to the quick thinking and fast work of his crew, Hayden was at least able to finish in a respectable fourth place.
Competing in September’s Rally Australia in a Skoda Fabia Super 2000-spec rally car, Hayden and John put the pedal to the metal in the final day to win all six stages in their WRC2 category. In total, they were the fastest, or equal fastest, WRC2 competitor through 10 stages, although it was a rally of ‘what could have been’ after an electrical issue prevented them contesting the first day of the event.
Winning the Trust House Racetech Rally Wairarapa at the beginning of October saw Hayden and John become three-time New Zealand rally champions.
At the end of October, Hayden’s dream to drive a WRC car was realised and he piloted a Qatar M-Sport World Rally Team-prepared Ford Fiesta RS world rally car in the mixed surface Rally RACC/Rally de Espana in Spain. He and John completed two days on tarmac followed by a day on gravel, in a credible eighth place amongst the WRC cars.