Team GT3 Portugal claimed their second second podium of the year this weekend at Magny Cours, France. Duarte Felix da Costa, Lourenço Beirão da Veiga and Ricardo Bravo on the Lamborghini Gallardo LP600 were the best Portuguese on the end of the race, finishing 3rd on the Pro-Am class and 9th overall, being now only 6 points of P3 on the championship, with one race to the end.
Considered by the media as the most excited and interested race of the year with lots of overtakings and fights during the 3 hours of the race, the fourth round of the Blancpain Endurance Series showed once again why is considered one of the most competitive GT championships of the world.
After a difficult qualifying due to not knowing the dry references of the circuit, the first ever 100% Portuguese team to contest in a International Championship had a great start and at the end of the first hour Lourenco Beirao da Veiga managed to deliver the car to Duarte Felix da Costa at 3rd place at the Pro-Am class: “We knew the race would be very hard and if we wanted a good result we had to push from the start. I managed to find a good rhythm and at end of my stint we were third which was very important”, said Lourenço Beirao da Veiga at the end of the podium ceremony.
The 5th and last round of the Blancpain Endurance Series will take place at Silverstone at 9th and 10th October.
Despite having made his debut at Magny Cours, Duarte Felix da Costa was able to quickly adapt to the circuit and kept alive the fight for 3rd place in the Pro-Am class during his driving stint: “At a certain point we believed it would be possible to fight for the win but it is evident that the Ferraris are more competitive than us at the moment so podium was the best we could reach this weekend. It was a difficult stint for me because of tyre degradation but everything went well and the most important was that I gave the car to Ricardo in good braking and mechanical conditions”.
Ricardo Bravo was the last to take the control of the Lamborghini and was able to keep the 3rd place until the end, finishing 9th overall: “We achieved our second podium of the season on a circuit that was unknown for us. We had an important support from Reiter Engineering which allowed us to improve a lot our set up and also to have good data analysis. It was an excellent weekend and hopefully the last race of the season will be the same. At Silverstone is crucial to attack and not do mistakes in order to put pressure at Vitaphone and fight for 3rd place of the championship”, concluded Bravo, about the fight that the Portuguese team will have to face at Silverstone with the most successful GT team and current GT1 World champions – Vita4one Racing.
