Kiwi Hayden Paddon is at top of the leaderboard at the WRC's Rally Sardegna in Italy.

High-flying Kiwi driver Hayden Paddon is showing the world's best how it is done at the Rally Sardegna.

Paddon produced the drive of his life in his Hyundai i20 to win three of the first four stages on the second day of the World Rally Championship in Italy and held onto his overall lead for the rest of the day.

Paddon leads the Volkswagen duo of Sebastien Ogier by 8.8 seconds and with Jari-Matti Latvala a further 17s behind in third.

Ogier is the defending WRC title holder and also has a handy lead in this year's championship.

In a record-breaking day, Paddon also became first Kiwi to lead a WRC round outside New Zealand but it almost all came unstuck on the final stage.

Leading Ogier by 20s, Paddon had problems with either the supension or tyres that pushed him wide at every turn.

"At one point we hit a bank and from then we backed off - and we lost a lot of time," Paddon said.

Paddon said it would be tough to hold onto the lead tomorrow.

"Many drivers know tomorrow's stages well, but we'll have a road position advantage again, so we'll see if we can make the most of it again."

Paddon's best ever finish in a WRC event is fifth, which he claimed in Sweden earlier this year.

At the lunch break, Paddon said it was an amazing feeling.

"It's a lot more than we were aiming for."

Paddon was fastest through the opening two speed tests to be the surprise leader by 19.8sec

The 28-year-old enjoyed cleaner roads offered by a low start position to win the Grighine Sud stage by 5.3sec, before outpacing the field by 11sec in Grighine Nord stage.

"We were surprised by our speed in special stage two so we calmed down in the next one and didn't take big risks, just following the line."

After having no luck in his previous two WRC campaigns, things may be changing for Paddon.

"We hit a massive rock that pitched us in the air so we were a bit lucky."

His astonishing beginning to the day represents a turning point for Paddon, who up until now has really struggled to get out of the middle of the 14-car field.

Also helping is the fact his Hyundai team installed a paddle shift gearbox into his i20 car to match his team-mate Dani Sordo.