Returning to the National Speed Championship, but without also forgetting WorldSBK, multi-National Speed Champion Ivo Lopes did not give his rivals any chance at the start of the season at the Estoril Circuit.
The BMW 1000 driver had already secured pole position in the Motor Club Estoril race and when the red lights went out, he immediately shot to the lead of the field. With an extremely strong pace, it didn’t take long for Lopes to isolate himself and after four laps he already had an advantage of more than 21 seconds, to win clearly.
With no arguments to avoid escaping at the front, Champion Romeu Leite, Miguel Romão and João Rego, all on Yamaha R1, ended up being the protagonists of the most exciting fights of the race. Always very close in the first half of the race, the duel for second position calmed down seven laps from the end, but it was short-lived.
After a few laps just over a second behind Leite, Romão began to recover ground to reignite the fight for second position and again with short intervals, in the tenths. A bet made at the perfect time, as he reached the middle of the podium at the drop of the curtain, beating Leite by 2.754s.
Rego, on the other hand, was unable to recover after losing pace with seven laps to go. A failure that not only took him out of the fight for the podium, but even put the fourth place in which he finished in question. This is because Gonçalo Ribeiro, the big winner of the Superstock 600, took advantage of the opportunity to get closer. Always isolated at the front of his category, the Yamaha R6 rider won among the 600 with more than a minute of advantage and just 1.170s behind fourth place overall.
Much further away was the runner-up in the Superstock. Pedro Fragoso (Yamaha R6) was one lap behind, with José Gafenho, on the same bike, completing the podium and needing around 23 more seconds to complete the race.