The 11th and 12th rounds of the FIA WTCC will take place next weekend on Porto’s Circuito da Boavista.
This is the third visit the championship pays to this racetrack that winds up along the streets of the Portuguese city and was revived in 2005 after half-a-century since it hosted the Portuguese Formula 1 Grand Prix.
In 2007 – on WTCC’s first visit – Chevrolet’s Alain Menu and BMW’s Andy Priaulx claimed one victory apiece. Two years later, Gabriele Tarquini won the first race for SEAT and Augusto Farfus the second for BMW.
For this year’s races the track has been consistently modified to improve safety. The chicane in front of the pits, a troublemaker in the previous years, has been totally re-designed; at the same time the track sector that includes the long straight on Avenida da Boavista and the fast corners on Avenida do Parque has been widened from eight to twelve metres and provided with larger run off areas.
In Porto the WTCC competitor will benefit from a 30 minute test session on Friday to re-discover the track and then of the extended qualifying session (30-minute Q1 and 15-minute Q2) adopted for the events hosted on street circuits.