Zimbabwe's Conrad Rautenbach defied the roughest route he has encountered this season to win the Pearl of Africa Uganda Rally over the weekend.

The 22-year-old Zimbabwe with co-driver Peter Marsh finished in a time of 02:52.52, beating second placed Hideaki Miyoshi and Hakaru Ichino of Japan by about four minutes.

The junior world champion's victory effectively deposed Japanese Miyoshi from the top of the African Rally Championship (ARC) table.

"It feels nice winning such a difficult rally. The route was tricky and rougher than even the Kenya Safari Rally. The route was really hard on the car. It was hard to get the car to the finish," said Rautenbach.

Rautenbach has become the second foreign driver, after South African Johnny Gemmel's victory in 2002, to win the Pearl of Africa Rally in its nine years' history.

Jas Mangat and Olivier Meganck in a Golf finished fourth and were the best placed Ugandans but the biggest cheers were reserved for Susan Muwonge, the only lady to finish the event.

Only five of the 15 starters completed the third leg of the rally on Sunday.

Emma Katto, who returned to race under the "super rally" system, gave a good account of himself to win the second leg and bag three ARC points.

Ponsiano Lwakataka was forced out by a blown turbo-charger while the South African rally sisters of Lola and Megan Verlague were sidelined by mechanical problems in the closing stages.

The Pearl of Africa Rally, covering a total of 816.85km, is the third round of the ARC. The fourth round of the ARC is the Mountain Gorilla Rally set for May 4-5 in Rwanda.

Japan's Miyoshi won the season opening Rally of Tanzania while Zimbabwe's Rautenbach won the KCB Safari Rally.

Source: Xinhua