Former FIA African Rally Champion Conrad Rautenbach made a successful start to his 2010 season on last weekend’s Total Tour of Natal Rally – where he was comfortably fastest of the conventional Group N cars.

Rautenbach drove Prodrive’s Subaru Impreza N2010 development car on the two-day opening round of the South African Rally Championship and just missed out on a podium. A 19-strong entry of Super 2000 cars ensured the Zimbabwean was in for a tough weekend of competition, but Rautenbach beat all but three of the S2000 cars in the African heat.

“It was great to be back rallying again,” said Rautenbach, who was re-united with Peter Marsh – the co-driver who guided him to an exceptional victory on the Safari Rally in 2007. “I didn’t really know to expect from this event. I hadn’t competed in Africa for a while and I hadn’t driven a Group N car for about as long, but it didn’t take long to get used to them.”

Despite only driving the car for 50 kilometers before the start, Rautenbach was immediately on the pace. The Tour of Natal stages take crews through the sugar cane plantations of Durban, ensuring unique conditions – of which Rautenbach was the only driver with no experience, having never competed on this event previously.

Having spent the last two years competing at the highest level with the Citroen Junior Team in the FIA World Rally Championship, Rautenbach made short work of the previously unseen roads.

“It was quite tough going into the stages only having seen them on a DVD before,” he said. “The organisers of this rally don’t allow a recce, which meant we were relying on their notes. We didn’t have any real problems, but there were a couple of scary moments. The stages were nice, though, lots of long medium fast corners.”

Rautenbach also enjoyed his chance to get a taste of the latest specification Subaru from the British-based Prodrive team.

“The car worked well,” he said. “We had no problems with it at all. Clearly Group N cars have come on since I was last in one; the 33-millimetre restrictor gave us a bit more power, but it was always going to be tough going up against the S2000 cars. One of the things I did notice in the Group N car was the weight you’re carrying – these cars take a bit more slowing down than the world car. The good thing with Group N is that they’re a bit cheaper and I think we have shown that, even without much testing, you can get close to Super 2000.”