Conrad's story  

Conrad Rautenbach has come a long way in a very short space of time. Eight years ago, he was still driving anything with four wheels around his family’s tobacco farm in Zimbabwe. And now he’s a full-time competitor in the World Rally Championship. He’s come out of Africa.

He lives in London now, for the ease of commuting to every round of the WRC. Prior to his arrival in leafy Wimbledon Village, he’d tried living in eastern France, but it didn’t fit. He’s happy now, though. In more ways than one.

“This was always my dream,” says Conrad. “When I was driving those cars around the farm when I was eight or something, I always wanted this. I always saw myself driving a World Rally Car in the world championship and now I’m here. I’ve got to be honest, though, it’s been a lot harder than I thought.”

As Conrad takes in life at the highest level of the sport, the one thing he knows he can fall back on is his experience. He might only be 23, but he’s driven a lot of rallies. And won plenty.

He started aged 16 years and two months. Having spent years watching his father Billy competing in the African Rally Championship, when his turn came, dad was happy enough to sit alongside and offer an insight into what was required to make it through his first event. It had been a family affair, with dad busy at work, Conrad’s mom Jenny had made notes on the recce. It’s fair to say, it wasn’t a smooth ride from the start.

Conrad says: “The very first stage I ever did, there was a kilometre-long straight off the line. After that, there was a cattle grid, but there was a gate next to the grid. Dad had gate in the pace notes. I’d made those pace notes with my mom, because dad was at work during the recce. I remember telling him there was a grid and a gate, and which way should I go. He said to go through the gate. It was my first rally, I was doing as I’d been told; the fact that the gate was locked wasn’t going to stop me. We went straight through the gate. I don’t think dad was too impressed with that.”

Conrad learned and learned quickly – and not just to make sure the gate’s open before you crash through it. He finished seventh overall on that first event, Zimbabwe’s round of the FIA African Rally Championship, driving a Group N Toyota Corolla. Aged 16, Conrad had just scored points in an FIA championship on his first ever event.

That Corolla would carry him to his first victory soon after and then his first title, the Zimbabwean Rally Championship. He won it aged 18. A year later and he was into the Junior World Rally Championship.

That first season of JWRC rallying was tough. Coming to a European-based series from rallying in Africa was not the easiest of transitions.

“That first year we drove a Puma in the JWRC,” he recalls. “It was a disaster. We didn’t finish a single event.”

He did, however, set some quick times. The following year wasn’t much better as a Citroen C2 replaced the Puma. Conrad’s C2 wasn’t the same as the factory cars. Unwilling to accept that he couldn’t be as quick as his fellow Citroen drivers, he pushed harder and had some big accidents.

The breakthrough came in 2006, when he joined British team Geoff Jones Motorsport. This was a pivotal season for Conrad. He hit the podium three times in Juniors and began working with one of Britain’s finest co-drivers David Senior. In addition to his Junior programme he was also driving a Subaru in the British Rally Championship, where he won the British Junior title. He even found time to add the occasional trip back to Africa.

“The 2006 season was fantastic,” says Conrad. “I moved to Wales to be close to the team. I was working on the car with the team and Geoff [Jones] was helping me as a driver. Everything was really starting to work. David [Senior] helped me a lot that year, he has so much experience. We spent a long time working on the notes. Coming from Africa, I wasn’t really driving to the notes. I was reading the road rather than listening. I used to hate the recce and making notes, but now I really work at it. We didn’t have any accidents that year and we had some good results – we found consistency that year.”

And the speed and titles followed a season later. Having revisited his rallying roots in Africa a year before, Conrad was keen to put together a tilt at the title. With help from Subaru in Africa, the deal was done. He won the FIA African Rally Championship title comfortably. But, what was more important – and even bigger source of pride – was his success on the legendary Safari Rally in March that year. And, given that the Safari was a round of the IRC that season, that meant taking on the might of Fiat and its host of factory cars and drivers. Kenya was close enough to Conrad’s backyard. He wasn’t going to be beaten. Adding his list to a roll call of names which included Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz as well as African legends Shekhar Mehta and Ian Duncan meant everything to him. And, don’t forget, he’d achieved that aged just 21.

If Africa was the perfect place to demonstrate his consistency of finishing in the toughest of conditions, the JWRC was the ideal arena to showcase his speed. In Finland, a string of quick stage times, caught the eye of a certain Frenchman, Mr Guy Frequelin.

“Patrik Sandell was leading [Finland] by about 10 seconds, but we were closing on him,” says Conrad. “Until we got a puncture, which ripped out the brake lines. It was really tough at the time. I really wanted to win that event. In the Ouninpohja stage, we’d been going well and – on split times –had taken the lead of the event before the problem. It was after, Guy [Frequelin, then Citroen Sport team principal] and Yves Matton [then customer team manager] started to talk to us about this season.  It was a great boost for me to have Guy coming to talk to me.”

The deal was done. Just six years after crashing through that gate on his first ever stage, Conrad was about to realise his dream of becoming a WRC driver.

Achieving that dream has been tough, but living the dream hasn’t been plain sailing, either.

On only his second outing in the C4 WRC, Conrad and David Senior clinched an incredible fourth overall on one of the wettest and trickiest Rally Argentinas for years. On the very next event, having tasted the highs, they suffered the lows. Coming around a blind bend on a road section in Jordan, he crashed head-on into Sebastien Loeb. It simply couldn’t have been worse.

Candidly, Conrad admits it was the low point of his career. He says: “We’d retired at the end of the opening leg [in Jordan] with no clutch. I was gutted. I didn’t think it could get any worse. We were on for another good result. On Saturday we were chasing experience, nothing more. Then the accident happened, I couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t have been worse. Don’t take this the wrong way, but if it had been Dani [Sordo] it might not have been quite so bad. We were new to the team and looking to try and impress and then this happened. Nightmare.”

It was, however, an accident. One of those things.

Conrad has bounced back from that forgettable Saturday in April to continue to level his learning curve. It hasn’t been easy, though.

“I never thought it would be this tough,” he says. “There have been lots of little things which just haven’t really let me get on with the driving. This year I feel like I haven’t really shown myself. Okay, from time to time there have been good rallies, but there hasn’t been the kind of consistency which would allow me to build and go forward.

“You have to take positives from this season. I’ve really grown to understand the car more. Obviously, it’s a fantastic car, but you have to learn it. You need time and experience with these kind of cars to really fine-tune your own set-up. Towards the end of the year, we’ve been getting closer to that zone.

“I said earlier that this was my dream. I’m sure it’s a lot of people’s dream to come to the world championship and drive these kind of cars. It’s hard work to get here. Really hard work and there are times when you question the whole thing. What you need to get you through that is motivation and desire. And speed, of course. Sometimes you have to start off a little bit slower to get faster. But you have to show yourself. You have to be prepared to take those risks.”