Conrad Rautenbach and Nicolas Klinger recorded their first non-finish of the year on the Toyota Dealer Gauteng Rally, round 4 of the South African Rally Championship. The Green Fuel Ford Fiesta S2000 snapped an alternator belt in stage 11 of 14, the result of a seized pulley. Provisional results leave Conrad and Nicolas leading the title race by a margin of two points at the season’s halfway mark.
Unseasonal winter rain two days ahead of the rally turned the stages into a slippery lottery and running first on the road as the championship leader, Conrad knew he had his work cut out. “It was incredibly slippery and difficult to judge braking distance on those roads, which were more grass than gravel. I lost a lot of motivation when I saw the stages that are more suited to off-road racing than rallying”, the title leader said.
Conrad and Nicolas ended day 1 in an unaccustomed 10th position overall amid numerous allegations of short-cutting of the route by his rivals and Conrad has a very firm view: “Many of the stages were just tracks through a grassy field, so I had to find the correct road as well. There was ample opportunity to take big cuts but that’s not how I rally and it cost us a lot of time. If I wanted to drive through mielie fields, I would have become a farmer”.
Controversy dogged the Green Fuel Team from the first stage, which was not included in the route DVD. Conrad explains: “We were supposed to get notes of the stage before the start but that didn’t happen so when I got there I asked the marshal if we could walk the stage which he agreed to. This was done in the interests of both the public’s safety as well as ours. It turns out he didn’t have the authority and a competitor put in a protest which nearly saw us excluded. The stewards eventually overturned the protest”.
Conrad and Nicolas put the hammer down on day two, setting a string of top 5 times that saw the pair move into 8th place before retirement halted their charge.
Before sunset, the Green Fuel Ford team had their Fiesta back at the workshop and checked over for possible engine damage. After a thorough check, the team prepared the Fiesta to fly to Kenya for the 4th round of the FIA African Rally Championship which takes place this weekend.
Conrad and Nicolas have won the opening three rounds and comfortably lead the FIA championship. Kenya is crucial to the team’s title hopes as they will miss the Uganda round as it clashes with the 5th round of the SA Rally Championship.