Masters Historic Racing Limited announces today that it has been appointed to manage all sporting aspects of the fourth Grand Premio Historico do Porto, races which are run biennially over the streets of the historic Portuguese coastal city.
The event’s date for is also announced today as June 17-19 2011, two weeks before the races held over the same streets for the ‘modern’ FIA World Touring Car Championship. The team at Masters Historic Racing has been entrusted with the task of managing all aspects of the races, from sporting policy to entries to technical inspections and race direction. Masters will also coordinate with the City authorities over the promotional and logistical elements of this major historic racing festival.
The Porto Historic GP weekend had previously been run - in 2005, 2007 and 2009 - under local management, but this year, the decision has been made by the City authorities, for whom the event is a key driver for tourism, inward investment and international promotion, to work with an experienced international group, and so have selected Europe’s leading historic racing event organiser, Masters Historic Racing, who can point to a track record of events in France, Spain, Sweden and across the UK.
Porto’s City government has committed to major revisions to the Boavista circuit, following new layout plans agreed with the FIA, aimed at a Grade 2 licence classification, with a new slower complex of curves in the Start-Finish section – now set to become a permanent stretch of race track - as well as an all new paddock, new safety barriers, and an increase in track widths along most of the 5.2 kilometres of city and parkland circuit.
Masters will be running races for its 3-litre Grand Prix cars, for the 1960s and 1970s sports cars, the ever-popular Gentleman Drivers GT grid, and the Pre-1966 Masters Touring cars, both over and under 2 litres. Masters has agreed with ANCAP, the national historic championship of Portugal to host two of their full and exciting race grids. This event has previously drawn worldwide TV coverage and crowds in excess of 100,000 enthusiastic and knowledgeable spectators.
“We are pleased that we won a worldwide competition for the rights to this event,” said Masters founder, Ron Maydon. “We did race some of our grids on the old-style circuit back in 2007, and many of those drivers are keen to return, along with dozens more keen to test themselves on this famous, if now much revised, track. The Grade 2 updates to the track, as well as the new facilities were key in this decision, as are the generous benefits on travel and accommodation offered to every entrant. We are sure that this will be a ‘must do’ event for historic racers from all over Europe, and we already have entry inquiries from Australia, Japan and the USA, as well as all over Europe.”
Teams and drivers seeking further information are asked to register with the Masters office on team@themastersseries.com, by December 20th. Details on the accommodation and the travel support package, the races and a first draft provisional timetable will all be made available to all interested competitor inquiries.
