In the first of a series of interviews with those working with former FIA African Rally Champion Conrad Rautenbach, we talk to Francois Xavier Demaison (FX), the chief engineer on Conrad's Citroen C4 WRC.  

Conrad’s had a fairly tough start to the season. What’s your take on that?

It’s right. Conrad has had quite a hard first half. He wanted to improve his speed and come closer to the drivers at the top and he really started to push to get there. I think he was quite unfortunate a couple of times. He was pushing harder, but that meant he was using the left foot on the brake a bit more, which caused some problems with the brakes. He was getting quite frustrated, I think. 

Have you worked the brake problem out?

Yes. It’s much better now. Conrad has changed his style a little, he’s using less left foot on the brake and the temperatures in the brakes are lower. It’s good. We saw this in Greece, his times compared with the drivers at the front were the best yet.

Which rallies suit Conrad best?

The faster rallies. This means, from what we know about Poland, this could be a good one for him – and Finland.

What’s it like to ride alongside Conrad on the tests?

It’s good. The thing I notice from being in the car with him is that he has had a tendency to brake too late and brake very hard – particularly in the technical sections. He over-drives the car a little bit in these places and tries too hard to make up the time. Some times, it’s better to brake a little early and not so hard. Conrad knows this now and, like I said, his approach is changing. He’s good in the car, though. Certainly, when we get into the fast sections of the stage, there is no problem there at all.

How do you find him to work with?

He's good, he's very relaxed. Sometimes, a small problem can upset him. But this is to with the experience. He's learning to drive around the small problem and not let it bother him. He's come a very long way from when we started to work together. Then, he wanted to change the car a lot. He wanted to make something different on the car set-up in every stage, but now he's more happy to take the set-up and go drive the car, to concentrate on driving. This is helping his times.