Y'all are nuts. Paddon is 12s off winning a second career rally behind the ultra dominant world champion (who regularly wins sweeping from the front) and another guy trying to win a second career rally. 12 seconds is a fart. In what way is this a bad performance? Look at the standing of every other one-rally winner in the standings right now, there are a few of them at the moment. He is fast but he is not faster than Ogier (which incidentally is the best compliment you can give right now to any driver who is not Ogier), why should he be dominating? It's not like the roads are anything like NZ roads. He likes the rally? Loads of guys like rallies they don't do their best driving on.
That said, this has been Mikkelsen's rally this time, doing very well and unlike one of his more senior teammates it'd be a shame if 2017 did not see him with a drive - winning here should help with that though.