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Rally Championship and the African Rally Championship series.
The 26-year-old Zimbabwean motor rallying sensation has entered for both this year’s ARC and the South African Rally Championship series.
And Rautenbach has already laid down an intimidating marker in the opening rounds of these two-tough competitions – the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally and Total Tour Natal Rally – which he both won in the past three weeks in Harare and Durban.
Rautenbach opened his 2011 motor rallying season with a bang when he cruised to victory in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally in Harare three weeks ago.
The Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally this year acted as the opening round of the eight-legged 2011 FIA ARC series whose other seven legs will be held in South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Madagascar during the course of the year.
Rautenbach’s victory in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally saw him opening an early lead in this year’s ARC Drivers’ Standings where he has 25 points, seven ahead of his nearest rival, fellow Zimbabwean Jamie Whyte.
Rwanda’s Giancarlo Davite is lying in third place in the ARC Drivers’ Standings with 15 points while Muna Singh of Zambia is sitting in fourth place with 12 points.
And after his comfortable victory in the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge Rally, Rautenbach quickly switched his attention to the Total Tour Natal Rally, which was held in Durban, South Africa, this past weekend. The Total Tour Natal Rally was the opening round of the eight-round 2011 South African Rally Championship series in which Rautenbach is competing for the second time after making his debut appearance in this competition last year.
And the Zimbabwean driving genius continued with his early good form of last season by beating a strong field of 38 cars to claim a first-place podium finish in a tightly-contested Total Tour Natal Rally race.
At the weekend in Durban, Rautenbach and his French co-driver Nicolas Klinger powered their G-Fuel Ford Fiesta S2000 to their second rally victory in three weeks and the former now lead both the FIA African Rally Championship and South African Rally Championship standings following a nail-biting finish to the Total Tour Natal Rally, which was round one of the SARC.
The G-Fuel Ford Fiesta S2000 was embroiled in a huge fight for the lead of the Total Tour Natal Rally after ending the first day’s action 30 seconds down in fourth place.
The young Zimbabwean charger endured steering rack problems and lost the power steering during Friday’s opening stages.
At the day’s final service, the team installed their spare steering rack and it was game on!
Rautenbach and Klinger won Saturday’s opening 13km stage, jumping into third place ahead of the defending South African champions Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson (VW Polo) and in the following 21km stage, scorched into second place following another stage win, more than halving their deficit to rally leaders Mark Cronje/Robin Houghton (Ford Fiesta S2000).
Cronje responded in the following stage, stretching their lead back to 20 seconds as Rautenbach had a misfire to contend with. Rautenbach takes up the story: “After the misfire I decided to put pressure on Mark who went off in stage 10 and we took the lead by 0,2 second.
“Jan (Habig) was 17 seconds behind us and I figured that was defendable but the VW guys came back and were right behind a stage later”.
In the penultimate gravel stage, Habig put in a monster time to snatch the lead by 0,3 seconds but Rautenbach put in a superhuman effort in the final 11km gravel stage to pull back 7,7 seconds and re-take the lead with just the 950-metre long tarmac stage to go.
As the G-Fuel Ford Fiesta entered the final control, the winning margin was 8,2 seconds – job done!
“It was very difficult to judge just how fast we had to go to stay ahead of Habig – I thought he was on a mission,” said Rautenbach at the Amanzimtoti finish. “The team worked incredibly hard all weekend and this victory is as much theirs as it is ours. This rally wasn’t good for my dad’s heart!”
“The South African championship is really close with a couple of cars on the same second. It’s going to be a very interesting year,” Rautenbach added.
This was Rautenbach’s French co-driver Klinger’s first event in South Africa and had his work cut out for this tricky event.
“It was difficult for me as it was my first time in the stages. It was also very difficult to prepare and adjust the notes we were given. I felt a lot of pressure. The championship in South Africa is very good and very close”.
The G-Fuel Ford Fiesta team is now hoping to go one better next month as Rautenbach and Klinger attempt to win two rallies in the same weekend. The Sasol Rally on April 15 and 16 in Nelspruit, South Africa, is the second round of both the African Rally Championship and South African Rally Championship series.
Rautenbach will be joined in Nelspruit by two fellow top Zimbabwean motor rally drivers Whyte, who is the defending ARC champion, and Craig Green, who has also entered for this year’s continental championship series.