Featuring two final fifty minute races within the series season concluding Estoril Endurance Festival saw both the #77 Racar Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 of Mathieu Martins and the #777 Gianfranco AMR Vantage GT4 of Rubens Vaquinhas and Pedro Bastos Rezende chase the Iberian and Espana Series double within their respective GT4 Pro and GT4 Am classes.
With Martins claiming pole position ahead of race one on Sunday, that lead was short lived going into the first corner whilst the #777 Gianfranco machine of Vaquinhas was the meat in a three-car sandwich as many took avoiding action from a spinning BMW on the opening lap.
From then on in, it was to be a frustrating chase to the pit stop window for the #77 car before most of the field pitted at the earliest opportunity. With the younger Henrique Oliveira now aboard the #77, he too went into an immediate racing dice with at least three other cars in class which extended until the chequered flag with the #77 claiming a P4 finish and the #777 another P1 in class.
Race two later in the day had much the same franticness about it as cars squabbled for early track position but with a reversal on starting drivers of course. As the race seemed to be going through its motions, an off for a championship contesting Am Class Mercedes saw the Safety Car brought out with just four minutes remaining.
Seventh at the restart, the #77 was on something of a charge that saw them move up to P4 overall at the end with a last corner switch for position on track for Martins to lay claim to both the Iberian and CPV Portuguese drivers championships to go with his already claimed Espana title.
Vaquinhas and Rezende also added both the Iberian GT4 Am Championship title with that of the CPV Class title to also go alongside their previous Espana Championship win from a few weeks ago.
Photo credits – Team / Series / social media