Conrad Rautenbach collected a stunning debut win in his Ford Fiesta S2000 on the Toyota Dealer Rally, round two of the South African Rally Championship, which finished near Cape Town this afternoon.

Despite the former FIA African Rally Champion and his new Ford arriving in South Africa just days before the start of the event, Rautenbach put his complete lack of competitive mileage in the car to one side and got on with winning the rally. Prior to the event, the 25-year-old Zimbabwe driver had talked of winning being a possibility and he duly delivered when it mattered most - despite a minor technical issue which limited him to a 20-kilometer test ahead of his debut in the car.

Rautenbach was also quick to pay tribute to his M-Sport-built Fiesta which won out of the box – as it did in the hands of Mikko Hirvonen on the Monte Carlo Rally and for Nasser Al Attiyah when he contested the Qatar Rally in his Fiesta.

“The Ford has been fantastic,” said Conrad. “Really, just an amazing car that the boys at M-Sport have built. You know it was all such a last-minute job, but everything has come together – it’s been a fantastic rally for us.”

With only limited time to test the Fiesta ahead of the event, Rautenbach had been working on the car’s set-up for much of the opening day. But, when day two came, he was happy with the car and he posted his first fastest time – and moved into the rally lead. He remained out front at the finish – despite never having started the Cape Town-based event previously.

Coming on the back of his fourth place on the opening round of the South African series, Rautenbach is understandable upbeat about his season so far.

“It’s been a great start to the year for us,” he said. “The fourth we picked up in Natal on top of the win here is just what we were looking for. But, we have to build on this now. We have more testing planned with the car; I still haven’t done many miles in it yet and there’s clearly more pace to come out of me and the car. But this has been a really enjoyable event. We turned it on a bit this morning and then in the tenth stage. We went into the final stage with a small lead and it was really hard to judge just how hard we should be pushing, but we got through with no problems to take the win. It was a great rally and a really fast one. In most stages, we were averaging around 140kph: it was crazy fast!”