The 2014 Classic Endurance Racing season closed with its fifth and final round at the Algarve Historic Festival at the Portimao circuit, the races part of the Algarve Historic Festival, with Chevron being the marque to beat. With over forty prototype and GT cars competing, Martin O’Connell took the outright win and the Proto 2 class with a solo drive in the one-hour race on Sunday afternoon in his Chevron B36.
O’Connell’s second win of the season, the Proto 1 category also went to Chevron, ex-British Formula Three race Andrew Kirkaldy taking the class and eighth overall in his B8.
Porsche took the top three positions in GT1 (1966-1974) with a win by the duo Simon / Mulder. German domination would have been total in Grand Touring if it was not for the pairing of Jörgens / Horn who were able to place thier De Tomaso Pantera between Traber and Boos-Goury’s BMW M1 in GT2 (1975-1979). For full results & more
British racer Nick Padmore took two wins in the Historic F1 races at Portimão, Portugal last week to round off his already impressive 2014 season at the Algarve Classic Festival. Aboard Smith-Hilliard’s Wolf-Williams FW05 for the first time since taking a third place finish at the Historic Grand Prix of Monaco back in May, Padmore was the man to beat all weekend, surviving a last-minute mechanical drama just before Sunday’s race to take his second win.
Having secured pole position on Friday, 0.8sec clear of the rest of the field, Saturday’s opening race saw Padmore pull a healthy gap on the Ensign N180 of Simon Fish from the moment the lights went out. He continued to extend the gap throughout the race before taking the chequered flag after 20-minutes and setting fastest lap in the process. For more on this story visit: www.historicracingnews.com
The Motor Racing Legends 50’s Sports Cars race took place on the Saturday evening which is also a contributing race to the inaugural Brian Lister Cup, a competition set up to add extra spice and incentive to all Lister models competing in the Trophy this year. Qualification had taken place the night before, with the Lister Knobblies participating making up 3rd, 4th, 5th & 7th on the race starting grid. The Lotus of Walker & Griffiths sat in pole.
By the time the early evening Algarve sun had begun to flirt with the horizon, the race result ended in a Lister “Knobbly” walk over not only did Jon Minshaw & Robert Hall storm to victory, they were followed in 2nd, 3rd and 4th by all the remaining Knobblies. A Lister Top 4. William Nuthall and Tony Wood finished second, Carlos Monteverde and Gary Pearson 3rd, with Mark Lewis and Ewan McLntyre completing the sweep. First home behind the Lister pack were British racers Malcolm Paul and Rick Bourne in their 1959 Elva Mk V who rounded out the top five.
