Considering his only previous tarmac experience was the North Island-based Targa Rally last year and his first chance to drive his Pirelli-backed Mitsubishi Evo X was the teams' official test, days before Rally Germany, Paddon has reason to feel chuffed.
"The result has completely exceeded my expectations and we will head for our next Pirelli Star Driver round, which is also on tarmac [Rally France], with a lot of confidence on a surface that I really enjoy driving on."
He steadily improved from 21st overall at the end of day one and going into the third and final day was trailing PWRC leader, Portugal's Armindo Araujo, by 23.8sec.
"The plan was to push on the first stage and see if we could make any inroads.
It wasn't a perfect stage for us, but we did take 1.8sec from the lead, though we then dead heated on the next stage, meaning we arrived at service still 22.2sec behind with only two stages left."
Paddon remained consistent while still keeping the pressure on, adding a further two PWRC stage wins to his total tally of six for the weekend.
He remains third in the PWRC but has closed to within seven points of second-placed Patrik Flodin, of Sweden, who finished one spot behind the Geraldine-based Kiwi in Germany.
