Rally of Turkey FIA World Rally Championship, round 8/15
The event…
Conrad Rautenbach overcame scorching temperatures and the most demanding conditions the Rally of Turkey could throw at the reigning FIA African Rally Champion to place his PH Sport-run Citroen C4 WRC in the points.
Rautenbach was never out of the top eight on the final day of the eighth round of the World Rally Championship, which ended in Kemer, southern Turkey this afternoon. After 19 stages under azure-blue skies, with temperatures regularly approaching 40 degrees, Rautenbach and his British co-driver David Senior were delighted with the progress they had made through the first half of the season.
On just his sixth start in a C4 WRC, Rautenbach dialled himself into an all-new suspension set-up (the same specification as Citroen Sport drivers Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo run on their cars) and took confidence from his eighth-placed finish.
Despite fierce competition on this event, Rautenbach spent much of the rally inside the top 10 and moved into a points-place on the first stage this morning. Much of the hard work to get into the top eight was done on the Phaselis test, where Rautenbach posted top times on each run at the 22.40km test.
The Rally of Turkey was Rautenbach's sixth start in a Citroen C4 WRC – and only his ninth start in a World Rally Car. Of those six starts, he has finished in the top 10 on three of them and in the points on two. His next event will be the South Estonian Rally in July. He will drive there as a test for th Rally Finland a fortnight later.
Conrad's quote…
"I feel I have made some big progress on this event. The car has been sensational – the handling is just what I was hoping it would be like. We have still got some work to do on the set-up, but that's really fine-tuning; a click here or there on the suspension, nothing major at all.
"It took me a little time to get used to running the same set-up as Sebastien [Loeb] and Dani [Sordo]. It does have a big effect on the way the car runs, there's much more grip – so I was having to be more aggressive to get it turned in. The roads were really quite rough in places on this event. I hadn't expected this, but on some of the stages, the roads were like Greece.
The car dealt with all of this, though. It's incredibly strong. It's such a great feeling to know that, when you see the big rocks coming, you can just line the car up and go straight over them. A big part of the strength we have in this area is also coming from the tyres, they have been really strong.
Okay, we had some delaminations and things like that, but the tyres really did have to work hard on this event – and to have no punctures is amazing. The surface was hard to read all of the time, especially on Sunday, where I found the roads a bit slippier than expected.
"The big thing I take from here is more confidence. Our times have been getting quicker and quicker through the weekend and this is coming from the set-up evolving to exactly what we want. As I get to know and predict what the car's doing, so the confidence is coming and coming. One small problem is that the more you get from the car, the more you want.
"We didn't have any technical problems with the car at all in Turkey, but the only minor thing was an over-heating issue. The PH Sport team worked really hard to get this sorted and a change of some parts solved it on Saturday. As you will know, though, one way to get rid of the heat out of the engine bay is to put the heater on in the car.
When it's already close to 40 degrees outside – and a lot hotter than that inside the car, whacking the heater up on full is not really what you need! David [Senior, co-driver] and I felt like we were sitting in a sauna in some of the stages. It was so hot, just incredible. You can feel that kind of heat zapping your energy, but it's for those kind of times that I do so much training.
"Having enjoyed driving the car so much, I just can't wait for the next rally in Finland. In fact, our next event is in Estonia – a test for Finland. That's going to be great. We can go there with no pressure and test the car under rally conditions. That's just what I need. Finland is a big confidence rally and an event like this is just what I needed before we get to Jyvaskyla."
- CR Media -
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