The city of Oporto has a long heritage of running motorsport events on the streets. From 1951 to 1960, the Portuguese Grand Prix used the Circuito da Boavista, alternating with the Monsanto circuit. Using city streets, the Boavista circuit saw cars running on cobblestones as well as concrete and tarmac.
In later years, a similar layout was used for the FIA World Touring Car Championship, for four years between 2007 and 2013. In fact, the circuit was revived in 2005 for use primarily as a historic motorsport circuit.
This year, the rally will use a stage laid-out around the streets of downtown Oporto, with the first part of the stage running up and then back down the Avenida dos Aliados, the square where Oporto parties when it celebrates.
The cars will pass the town hall, drive around the outside of the city hospital before passing back down the Avenida, across the front of the Sao Bento train station. The cars will then continue down the Avenida dom Alfonso Henriques (Portugal’s first king) before the flying finish and stop line close to the Douro river and within the cathedral grounds.
Unique recce for Oporto street stage
The recce for the Oporto street stage for this year’s Vodafone Rally de Portugal is somewhat unique. Instead of taking place during the usual pre-event recce on Tuesday and Wednesday of rally week, the crews will make their notes at the end of the first loop of three stages on Friday morning.
There is an amount of time built-in to the itinerary for the rally, which will allow all crews to recce the street stage between finishing the day’s third stage and heading back to EXPONOR and the mid-day service. They will use their rally cars, with a strict speed limit imposed, before continuing on their way.
Then, following the second loop of three stages, the crews will contest the street stage competitively twice, before heading back to the event base at Matosinhos for the end of day service and overnight parc ferme.
Plenty of action in downtown Oporto
With the double running of the Oporto street stage on Friday night of this year’s Vodafone Rally de Portugal, there will be plenty of action for the anticipated thousands of rally fans gathering to watch the action. In contrast to previous years, the stage will be run with just one car at a time rather than two side by side.
However, with just 15 minutes between the first and second running of the stage, the field will soon begin to overlap.
For example, the first car on the road will begin the first street stage, SS8, at 19:03. It will then start the second run – SS9 - at 19:18. However, cars will be starting their first stage at 19:17 and 19:19 so from the start of the second stage, there will be cars starting the stage every minute (the field will run with a two-minute gap on each distinct stage).