At Estoril Circuit this 5 October, during the last event of the CNV Portoguese Sport Prototype season, the Wolf GB08 of the twins confirmed the lead of the absolute classification, winning the championship after Race 2.
As happened for every track this year, Friday’s free practice sessions have been used by Stefano De Val – only one present at the event as his brother Nicola was busy following the WTCC in Bejing the same weekend – in order to learn the twists and turns of the most renown track in Portugal: Estoril.
The team composed by the twins was leading the championship by only few points, due to the fact that they did not take part in the two hill climbs races scheduled for the 2014 season, generating overall a 18 points handicap on the J.P. Fontes – M. Barbosa team. In this last event was mandatory for them to stay in front of the car in second place, in order to win the championship.
In very windy conditions Stefano was able to qualify the car in 3rd position for both races. The qualifying session showed to be far from easy with the experienced Portoguese driver taking advantage of their kilometers on the track. Particularly tricky were the last 15 minutes, where the oil spilled by a broken Porsche caused the tarmac to be slippery up to turn 4.
Race 1 consisted of a hard fight for the head of the group, with Stefano overtaking the car of J.P. Fontes – M. Barbosa for second place few minutes before the pit stop. First place was instead obtained and then lost after an infraction related to the neutralization time during the pit stop itself. In the end, the pace was there but the Wolf arrived second at the chequered flag.
Race 2 was fought against the Abreu – Sá Silva team, and the set of used tyre that came from the qualifying session. The 50 minutes race went down smoothly this time, with Stefano easily defending second position until the end of the race.
Only this time, waiting at the chequered flag toghether with the second place, there was the championship.
In the end this season granted us a huge amount of satisfaction and we are really happy to have come such a long way. We want to share this success with all the people that supported us during this season, starting with the crew of CRM Motorsport, that provided us the car and the care needed to reach this wonderful result.
Special Thanks to our engineers Alessandro Cevenini at his second season following us and Claudio Fenati, that helped us sort out few issues that came along the way to the final race.
Prototypes Absolute Classification (first three):
1° N. De Val – S. De Val 183 pt.
2° J.P. Fontes – M. Barbosa 176 pt.
3° C. Vieira – P. Salvador 144 pt.
And finally, thank you! We hope to have your support for next year, too!
