The second race of the final round of this year’s Iberian Supercars Endurance and Portuguese Speed Championship season, the Estoril Season Finale, was once again dramatic, with José Carlos Pires and Francisco Abreu becoming GT4 Pro Champions in their first victory. Sérgio Azevedo and Orlando Batina.
After the morning race, the BMW M4 GT4 duo from Speedy Motorsport needed a second place to win the title, regardless of the result of their great rivals – Nuno Pires and Elias Niskanen, in a Mercedes AMG GT4 from Lema Racing.
Jan Duran, in a Mercedes AMG GT4 from NM Racing Team, started from pole position, but at the start, Orlando Batina, in a BMW M4 GT4 (F82) from Batina Racing, from third position, was better when the traffic lights went out and left the first corner in command, followed by the ‘poleman’, of Patrick Cunha, Veloso Motorsport’s Audi R8 LMS GT4, and the two title candidates in the following positions, with Elias Niskanen commanding Francisco Abreu.
This group, also accompanied by Nil Montserrat (Mercedes from NM Racing Team), continued at high speed separated by a couple of seconds, with Jan Duran, trying to overtake Orlando Batina, and Elias Niskanen, eager to overtake Patrick Cunha, the most fierce. .
Close to the driver change window, the Spanish team’s recruit took command, while the Finn rose to third place, increasing his chances of winning the title.
It was in this scenario that the cars visited the pits, but when all the driver changes were made, Nuno Pires, who teams with Elias Niskanen in the Lema Racing Mercedes AMG, was followed by Guillermo Aso, in the Mercedes he shares with Jan Duran, Sérgio Azevedo, BMW M4 GT4 (F82) from Batina Racing, Francisco Cruz, in an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 from Racar Motorsport that he shares with Pedro Perino, with José Carlos Pires only in fifth.
In this scenario, the title fell to Nuno Pires and Elias Niskanen, in Lema Racing’s Mercedes AMG, while the driver of Speedy Motorsport’s BMW M4 GT4, to secure the title, had to move up to second.
However, two laps later, Guillermo Aso got in the way of overtaking a backmarker, missed the braking point and hit Nuno Pires’ Mercedes AMG, sending him into a spin.
Definitely late and without any prospect of being able to win the title, Nuno Pires entered the pits to retire, which handed the title to José Carlos Pires and Francisco Abreu, who managed to climb to third place.
Guillermo Aso would end up crossing the finish line in first place ahead of Sérgio Azevedo, but after the race, the Spaniard would end up being penalized with five seconds, due to his role in the incident with Nuno Pires, finishing in sixth place, once that a late Safety Car compacted the field.
Sérgio Azevedo and Orlando Batina were thus declared winners of the last race of the season, followed by José Carlos Pires and Francisco Abreu, who celebrated the title on the podium, and Francisco Cruz and Pedro Perino, who were classified in third place driving the Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 from Racar Motorsport.
Alberto de Martín and Nil Montserrat, in the NM Racing Mercedes AMG, won the GT4 Bronze, but it was insufficient to prevent Jorge Rodrigues and Patrick Cunha, who finished in second place, from winning the titles, but are Champions of their division in the Iberian Supercars Endurance and Portuguese Speed Championship.
Luís Calheiro and Paulo Macedo, in a Mercedes AMG GT4 from Lema Racing, with a solid race, were in third place ahead of Gabriela Correia – also in a car from Stuttgart, but from the JC Group Racing Team – who performed an eye-catching race since the eighteenth rank.
After the excellent recovery in the morning that took him to second place, Daniel Teixeira, starting from pole position in TCR, won his division and won the respective titles and also the Touring Car title in both championships.
The Cupra TCR driver from JT59 Racing Team was accompanied on the podium by father and son duo Paulo Silva and Guilherme Silva, in Audi RS3 LMS TCR from PDauto, and José Correia and Beatriz Correia, in Cupra TCR from JC Group Racing Team.
Borja Hormigos and Héctor Hérnandez, in the Autoworks Motorsport BMW M240i Racing, concluded the season in perfect fashion, with another triumph in the TC, and won the two titles in their division – the Iberian Supercars Endurance and the Portuguese Speed Championship.
The Spanish duo was accompanied on the TC podium by the duo Duarte Camelo and Gabriel Caçoilo and by Mariana Machado, both in Ginetta G40 from the FPAK Junior Team. Duarte Camelo ended up being the best placed in the championships among the young drivers supported by the federative entity.
Álvaro Ramos and Fernando Soares, in Aston Martin Vantage AMR, won the race in GTX and, with that, won the titles of their division and the GTC category in both championships. Miguel Nabais and André Nabais, Speedy Motorsport’s McLaren 570S, came in second place ahead of Tomás Pinto Abreu and Simon Moore, Tockwith Motorsports’ Ginetta G50, who completed the GTX podium with a high-level performance on a track that was not very favorable to the car English.
Rui Miritta won the Cup division, and the Monteiro Competições driver benefited from a penalty from Marcus Fothergill and Dave Benett, who fell to second, which did not prevent them from winning the division in the national speed race and the Iberian race. João Posser and Miguel Caetano, in a Veloso Motorsport Porsche 911 Cup, completed the podium.
Source: RaceReady Iberian
Photos: @pedro_pinto_fotografia
Circuito Estoril