Harare — FORMER African Rally Champion Conrad Rautenbach was on fire at the weekend when he finished among the top five drivers in the Acropolis Rally of Greece.

This meant that the 23-year-old rally sensation, co-driven by British Daniel Barritt, put up his biggest points haul of the season and seems to be improving with each race in the World Rally Championships.

Reports from Greece suggest the former Zimbabwe Dunlop Rally champion missed out on equalling his best ever WRC result of fourth overall by 11.5 seconds.

Powered by a Citroen JT C4 Rautenbach was pleased to have bagged four points on what had been one of the toughest Acropolis Rallies.

Rautenbach's experience in the rocky, rough and hot conditions of the African Rally counted in the Acropolis Rally that has similar features and for him this was an advantage.

The Zimbabwe hotshot admitted he was frustrated to have come so close to making it five points and equalling that result from Argentina last season, blaming it on the small problems they had on the delay.

"I was pretty confident this morning (Sunday), we went out ahead of (Federico) Villagra and I thought we could hold that position," he said.

"Unfortunately, things went a little bit wrong for us on the second stage and once again, they weren't really of our making. Our teammate Evgeny Novikov had a problem with his transmission in the stage and was losing a lot of time and we got caught in his dust again.

"We easily lost the 11.5 seconds we needed to get fourth place there and I guess that's the way our rally has gone this time. We've had some niggling problems that haven't cost us lots of time but they have prevented us from having a perfectly clean run."

Rautenbach and Barritt had problems with the left tyres of their car and this caused them to spin towards the end of the final stage of Day Three, but this did not deter the team.

"We went into the final stage ready to give it everything, but the tyres on the left-hand side of the car both delaminated which caused a half-spin near the end of the stage.

"Like I said frustrating. On the positive side, we drove more consistently on this rally than any other this season. Usually we have split times varying quite a lot, but here we seem to have managed to get into a good rhythm and stay there."