Paddon, with co-driver John Kennard, ended a distant fifth, 3 minutes 34.8 seconds behind three-time Rally of Germany victor Sebastien Ogier improving into a tie for third overall in the World Rally Championship standings after the ninth of 13 rallies.
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Volkswagen Polo R’s Mikkelsen took the lead after the morning’s specials, but needed his best form to stay ahead of Ogier in the afternoon’s stages.
Jari-Matti Latvala’s rally was effectively over immediately due to gearbox damage on Friday’s opener, though he rejoined under Rally2 and scored a couple of powerstage bonus points, and Mikkelsen was pushed back to fourth as the Hyundais made a late charge.
Hyundai team-mate Dani Sordo will also enter the second day in the hunt in the second i20 WRC, 6.8s behind Neuville, after a strong afternoon.
He told www.wrc.com: “We had a hard tyre choice for these last two stages but I think we managed the soft tyres pretty well and had a clean stage”.
“On the next stage I had to be very patient with the set up I have”.
The win saw the three-times world champion and current title holder strengthen his lead at the top of the championship table ahead of his teammate Andreas Mikkelsen of Norway.
Mikkelsen rued his tyre strategy on the Panzerplatte, which put the Norwegian down to second on the timesheets, behind rally leader Ogier.
“Overall a good day”.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow but I must say it will be tricky”.
Ogier said after Day 2 of Rallye Deutschland “On the whole, it was a long and tough day of rallying, but I am certainly pleased with our performance”.
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Ogier said he was looking forward to resuming the battle. The day began nearly perfectly for us – the right tyre selection meant I was able to gain some time on Seb, but I then made a mistake that cost us a lot of time.
