This year Rally de Portugal debuts a new super special, Coimbra, but in the past this history, of super specials, is rich.
As early as 1972, the Estoril Autódromo served as the stage for a Rally de Portugal Classification Test. At the end of the second stage, and in 5 series with around 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 didn’t exist yet.
Therefore, the super specials in the Rally de Portugal were born with the 1987 section at the Estoril Autódromo (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 just one detour through the pit entrance, re-entering the straight next to the tower, with the course changing in 1988 and 1989, having used dirt and asphalt roads inside the circuit. was 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 Braga.
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, getting to have three at the same time on three different tracks.
In 1999, Baltar was ‘born’ (3.20 km), which took place until 2001, and after the interruption, in 2007, in the Algarve, a super special was held at Estádio Algarve (2.03 km), the following year the race did not told the WRC, and on the 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 took thousands of spectators to downtown Porto. Then it was Braga’s turn and Porto again, again in the allies, but this year, the Porto super special took place elsewhere in the city, on the streets next to the São João Batista Fort, in Foz do Porto. A super special was scheduled in Vila Nova de Gaia, but it was canceled by the municipality some time before the event.
Not talking about the ‘variants’, but only in the locations, the Rally de Portugal has already had super specials at the Estoril Circuit, Braga (2 different locations), Jamor (Lisbon), Lousada, Baltar, Algarve Stadium, downtown Faro ( IRC, 2008), Lisbon, Porto. Now, it’s Coimbra’s turn.
