Conrad Rautenbach

Fast Facts:

Why support him?

He scored FIA championship points on his first ARC rally aged just 16.

He’s hungry to convert national rally success onto the world stage.

After a full season in 2008, he knows the C4 WRC better than any of his Citroen Junior team-mates

Career highlights:

Career Summary:

Rautenbach’s competition career began close to home with an attempt at the Zimbabwe Challenge Rally just days after he had passed his driving test. Despite a few mishaps he brought his car home seventh and became the youngest person ever to score points on a round of the FIA African Championship. The Junior World Rally Championship beckoned soon after and in 2004 he tackled the Monte Carlo Rally in a Super 1600 spec Ford Puma.

Over the next three seasons he tackled another 23 J-WRC rounds in a variety of cars including the Citroen C2, Opel Corsa and Renault Clio. Highlights included podiums and fastest stage times on both gravel and asphalt and, in 2007, he was the quickest J-WRC driver on one of the most difficult stages in the world – Finland’s Ouninpohja.

In an effort to quickly build his experience of different events Rautenbach also contested the British Rally Championship in 2006 and secured the junior title at the wheel of a Subaru Impreza. While in 2007 four outright wins in his domestic series secured him the African Rally Championship title.

Hungry for experience at the sport’s top level, Conrad tackled all 15 rounds of the WRC in 2008 in a car run by Citroen’s customer team, PH Sport. He started the year in a Citroen Xsara WRC but later switched to a C4 WRC similar to the one driven by Sebastien Loeb. Co-driven by Britain’s David Senior, Rautenbach’s highlights were four top ten finishes and a career best fourth place in Argentina. The lowlight? Undoubtedly the infamous head on crash that took him and Sebastien Loeb out Rally Jordan.

After his debut WRC season in 2008, the ambitious Conrad steps up a gear in 2009 with a place in Citroen’s new Junior World Rally Team, where he will be partnered by new co-driver Daniel Barritt.