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Raana Horan’s Skoda Fabia R5 was chasing Hayden Paddon all day, but couldn’t beat the NZ champ.
Emma Gilmour finished fourth overall in her Suzuki Swift AP4.
Dylan Turner had a hard landing in his Audi S1 AP4 on the second Puhoi stage.
This was Supercar driver and Bathurst champ Shane van Gisbergen’s first rally but he easily won the 2WD category.
The hills around Kaipara Flats and Puhoi reverberated with the buzzsaw roar and gunshot cracks of world class rally engines last month, when the City of Auckland Rally sped through the district on November 14.
The best drivers in the country took on more than 38 kilometres of tight turns, loose gravel and narrow tracks on two stages – between Glorit and Kaipara Flats and from Puhoi out to Kanohi.
Former World Rally Championship winner Hayden Paddon dominated the day, comfortably winning both runs of each local stage at average speeds of up to 101.5km/h in his Hyundai i20 AP4.
Crowds took to farm paddocks and driveways to witness the field of around 60 cars passing by every few minutes, with ear-splitting revs and screeching tyres shattering the peace of a sunny rural Saturday.
The City of Auckland Rally was organised after Covid-19 caused the WRC Rally New Zealand to be cancelled earlier this year. As well as the Kaipara Flats and Puhoi stages, the drivers took on Riverhead Forest and were based at Kumeu for the day, before competing at Jacks Ridge near Whitford the following day.
