The Atlantic Ocean once again serves as the backdrop for the Rally of Portugal. After the super special at Foz, in Porto, now it’s Figueira da Foz’s turn, with the competitors, this time, in the early evening of Friday, May 12th, riding on the ‘marginal’ between Figueira da Foz and Buarcos.
According to Autolook.pt, the super-special will take place between Marginal, on Avenida do Brasil, and the car park next to Spasso Praia. The route extends from Avenida do Brasil, in Figueira da Foz, towards Fortaleza de Buarcos, along Avenida Infante Dom Pedro. In the middle, a jump. Next to Praça do Mar Português, there is a large parking lot where the competitors will make the usual ‘donuts’, before entering the opposite direction in the opposite lane of the same road where they started, making the rest of the journey in the opposite direction, always next to the beach.
It will be a super special with a lot of space for the public, probably with several stands to be built for better visibility for the expected crowd.
12 different locations
Last year, the Rally of Portugal debuted a new super special, Coimbra, but in the past that history, of the super specials, is very rich.
As early as 1972, the Estoril Autódromo was the stage for a Classification Test for the Rally of Portugal. At the end of the second stage, and in 5 series with about two dozen cars, the competitors covered seven laps of the circuit. Under a heavy rain, Bernard Darniche, in an Alpine Renault A110 was the fastest, leaving his teammate Jean Pierre Nicolas 1 second behind. But the concept of super special did not yet exist.
Therefore, the super specials in the Rally of Portugal were born with the 1987 section at the Autódromo do Estoril (1987 to 1989; (13.10 km/11.60/5.5 Km), which in the first year were basically two laps of the track starting from the pit lane and making only a detour through the entrance to the pits, re-entering the straight next to the tower, with the course changing in 1988 and 1989, with dirt roads and asphalt inside the circuit being used.
That same year, Braga (12.90 Km) was born, as already mentioned, with a very winding track, delimited by ribbons, and with a lot of dust in the mix, in a place that is today the Vasco Sameiro Circuit.
In 1989 it was the turn of Jamor, which remained until 1992, with a fast and spectacular dirt track, which is now a golf course (2.50 km). In 1991 ‘Lousada’ was born, which had several versions, the first with 3.00 km and two cars at the same time on parallel tracks, even having three at the same time on three different layouts.
In 1999, Baltar (3.20 km) was ‘born’, which took place until 2001, and after the interruption, in 2007, already in the Algarve, a super-special stage was held at Estádio Algarve (2.03 km), the following year the race did not told WRC, and on IRC the super special was in Faro.
Finally, in 2011, the Lisbon Super-special was born, in Praça do Império, next to the Jerónimos Monastery (3.27 km).
In 2015, the magnificent Porto Street Stage, which brought thousands of spectators to downtown Porto. Then it was Braga’s turn and again Porto, again at Aliados, but that year, the super special in Porto took place elsewhere in the city, on the streets next to the Forte de São João Batista, in Foz do Porto.
A super special was even planned in Vila Nova de Gaia, but it was canceled by the municipality some time before the event.
Not talking about the ‘variants’, but just the locations, the Rally of Portugal has already had super-specials at the Autódromo do Estoril, Braga (2 different locations), Jamor (Lisbon), Lousada, Baltar, Estádio Algarve, downtown Faro ( IRC, 2008), Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, next to Portugal dos Pequenitos, and now Figueira da Foz, on the waterfront, to Buarcos. Where will the next one be?
