Gigi Galli meanwhile will take in his third event with his Aimont Racing-run
Citroen Xsara WRC, while
Toni Gardemeister and Xavier Pons are joined in the Mitsubishi fold by Armindo Araujo. All three of them will use Mitsubishi Lancer WRC05s.
Jan Kopecky and
Francois Duval are both back with their Fabia WRC cars and Mads Ostberg will use a
Subaru Impreza.
In addition to those in WRC cars and those in the Junior Rally Championship, there will also be a good turn out in the Group N class, with over 25 competitors set to battle it out for the ‘win’.
For the record, the Rally de Portugal is also a round of the Fiesta Sporting Trophy International. Seven crews are in contention for FSTi honours, including Britain’s Barry Clark and Simon Hughes.
Route:
The rally is based at Estádio Algarve, just outside Faro in Portugal's south-coast Algarve holiday region. As well as hosting the single service park, the stadium also holds a super special stage to start the action on Thursday evening and a repeat test to bring the rally to a close on Sunday afternoon. The bulk of the traditional stages are based in the Serra do Caldeiräo mountains, north of Faro. Each leg comprises two identical loops of stages, split by a return to the service park. The second leg is the longest and most northerly of the three. t is believed to be the most compact European WRC round with more than 35 per cent of the route being competitive. Drivers tackle 18 stages covering 357.10km in a total route of 1008.70km.
Last year:
The Rally de Portugal was not apart of the
FIA World Rally Championship in 2006. The ‘candidate’ event though was won by Portuguese national rally champion Armindo Araujo, over a minute up on former Skoda works driver, Janne Tuohino. Patrik Flodin took the final place on the podium.
