Rui Pinto: The Rally’s dean.

Rui Pinto, 56 years old, debuted in Rally Vinho Madeira in 1983 and, in 2019, he will be racing for the twenty-seventh time at the Club Sports of Madeira organized competition. The Madeiran champion in Production, in 1995 and 2006, and in VSH in 2017, has already run in this race at the wheel of vehicles as different as, for example, a Nissan Sunny 1.2, an Opel Kadett GT/E, an Opel Manta 2.0, an Opel Corsa GSi, a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth, a Ford Escort RS Cosworth, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V, a Ford Escort Maxi, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII, a Subaru Impreza STi, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X or the current Ford Focus WRC. The driver is “satisfied with this season’s balance. The Ford Focus has revealed to be a good bet  since, so far, in three years of competing, we have only given up once due to a mechanical problem. In Faial we rode a Skoda Fabia R5, since we wanted to prepare the Ford, the best way we could, for this edition of the Rally Vinho Madeira, in which we have bet for a good performance and a good result”.

Casino da Madeira opens its doors for an autograph signing session

On the 30.th of July, the competing teams at the 2019 RVM will be present at Casino da Madeira for an autograph signing session. This event is part of the social programming and is compulsive for notorious pilots as well as for the FIA pilots competing; nonetheless, it is open to every racer who has indicated willingness for that option at enrollment. Up to now, 55 teams have been confirmed. This is an opportunity for the public to interact with the contestants and to stand close to the vehicles that will be racing the roads of Madeira in this 2019 RVM edition. The signing session will take place between 9:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., nonetheless, the venue will be open from 7:30 p.m. Casino da Madeira has been, for the last few years, the stage of this event that moves hundreds of fans.

Welcoming at the airport

Filipe Freitas’ Lancia Delta Integrale Evo is currently in exhibition at the arrivals section of the Airport of Madeira. It is a way to greet those who visit us by promoting Rally Vinho Madeira and the ambience that is felt around the island around this time of the year. The vehicle will be in exhibition until August the 4.th.

Vítor Sá: “To race fast and have fun”

Vítor Sá returned this year to motor-racing and, for him, “the beginning of the season was a complicated one. We missed the first leg and had to build up, from zero, an entire structure. We worked a lot and have been getting better. We had to face strong competitors but our work has made handling the car a lot easier and also made me feel more comfortable. The balance, so far, is quite positive. Rally Vinho Madeira is quite a difficult one and has to be raced with a focused mind. There is still a lot to learn and this year we will have many more contestants in our class. We will try to race fast and, if possible, win in all categories in which we may be enrolled”. Vítor Sá is 54 years old and he debuted in motor-racing at the end of the 80’s of last century. Holding eleven regional titles, he was, for a long time, synonym with rallies in Madeira. Winner of the 2004 Rally Vinho Madeira, he was also the 1992 and 2011 champion, as well as, uninterruptedly, between 1999 and 2007. After a long career interregnum, he is back to racing in 2019 and is, along with his Citroën DS3 R3T, one of the island’s liveliest competitors in two driving-wheels competitions.

60 years of Rally: The Rally in the 2000’s

In the 2000’s, Rally Vinho Madeira maintained the status from previous years and never failed to show up strongly in the motor-racing international stage. In the symbolic year of 2000, once a setting for various literary fiction works, Piero Liatti still managed to win with a Subaru, but, in the following years, Peugeot cleared all competition by winning every edition up to 2004. Mainly with its 206 ERC model which has always proved to be an almost perfect car for our roads. In 2001, Adruzilo Lopes achieved a long desired goal, both for himself and for the Peugeot Portugal team, and, the following year, Andrea Aghini obtained success in that which was, up to now, his last race in Madeira. The Portuguese team, guided by Carlos Barros, won again in 2003 with Miguel Campos. In all these years the podium places were monopolized by this model, one that is strongly longed for by fans. After the ban on the WRC model from all championships but for the World Championship, Vítor Sá, owning a Peugeot 306, had the ideal machine to rise Madeiran pilots back to the top of the Rally Vinho Madeira’s general poll. And it was exactly that what the pilot managed to do in 2004, twenty nine years after the last insular racer achieved it. This was an unavoidable landmark point in the career of a racer who dominated an entire decade of local motor-racing, but also an expression of the vigorous élan that the sport had in the archipelago. In 2005, Renato Travaglia, a pilot who also holds a large fan base on the island, was the only one to manage a win at the wheel of a S 1600 (Renault Clio), in a year in which Giandomenico Basso should have won. The Italian redeemed himself in the two following years and, also, in 2009, always at the wheel of his Fiat Punto S 2000. For a little margin he did not win in 2008, a year in which Nicolas Vouilloz, who was to become the IRC Champion, opened the celebratory champagne bottle.

Armindo Araújo: “To collect good points”

For Armindo Araújo, 2019 “is going pretty well. We are fighting for victory in the championship and our most direct adversary is already one result ahead of us. Rally Vinho Madeira is a big challenge, but also a race in which I enjoy, a lot, taking part. We want this participation to be a good operation when it comes to the gathering of qualification points for the Portuguese Rally Championship, notwithstanding reaching a good general result. We will, of course, race fast, but always aiming for our goal of collecting as many points as possible”. Armindo Araújo is turning 42 in September and debuted in motor-racing around twenty years ago. He was part of many brands’ teams and was twice, in 2009 and 2010, the World Champion in Production. He was the National Champion six times, in the Production group in 2000, in absolute title from 2003 to 2006 and again in 2018, year in which he returned to the sport after a long career interregnum that lasted for six years. National Champion in title, he stands in second place currently at the Portuguese Rally Championship.

Delay at the embarkation of vehicles on the Monte da Guia de Leixões ship.

The 2019 RVM Organizing Commission regrets to inform that, following a new received communication by the transportation company, the embarkation of vehicles on the Monte da Guia de Leixões ship will only be done on the morning of Saturday, the 27.th of July, being predicted that its arrival to Caniçal’s Port will only happy on the morning of Tuesday, the 30.th of July. The Organizing Commission will inform the public as soon as possible the vehicles’ collecting hour at Caniçal, since it is dependent on the schedule and procedures of the transportation company and Funchal Customs authority.

Miguel Barbosa: “To be at the championship’s podium”

Miguel Barbosa has had a “season of highs and lows. We gave up at the Azores and at the Portuguese Rally Championship which is a shame since these are competitions done on dirt, my favorite terrain. Other races have gone much better. Rally Vinho Madeira is a competition that emanates a unique ambience, with fantastic legs, and we wish to obtain a good general position. Having said this, our greatest goal is the Portuguese Rally Championship and our racing will be pointing towards that objective. We want, overall, to end at the National Championship’s podium”. Miguel Barbosa is 41 years old and his enrollment in the sport started with all-terrain racing, a discipline in which he won 10 national titles. He also competed in speed competitions and was the Portuguese GT champion in 2011. He has usually taken part in the Portuguese Rally Championship since 2016 with a Skoda Fabia R5, and came third, in this competition, twice. Currently he is fourth at the national Championship.

La Vie Funchal in full Rally mode

La Vie Funchal, a usual partner to Rally Vinho Madeira, is collaborating with the Organizing Committee in promoting the competition. At the commercial center, one can find three vehicles exhibited: a Mitsubishi usually used as a security car, a Renault 5 and Rui Conceição’s 1994 Ford Escort Cosworth, which recently won the SportPlus Regularity category at the Tour of the island – Historical Car Rally.             Rally fans will be able to see up close these machines until the 4th of August. In the context of this partnership, La Vie Funchal provides all the information related to this year’s edition in all the elevators at the center. Starting Monday, at the reception on the second floor, the RVM 2019 magazine will also be available.

Gil Freitas: “An excellent result would be finishing amongst the top ten”.

The current season has been, for Gil Freitas, “almost to be forgotten. In this season, technically our first with the Porsche 99, we had punctured tires in two rallies, which, in one of them, forced us to leave early; in another, a distraction made us turn late on a curve and hit, and, in Machico, a problem at the gas station caused damage to our engine which, since then, has been running 40 to 50 horses under what it should. At Rally Vinho Madeira we have not been that successful either, since in five participations we only concluded one. In this context, we hope to finish the race, in 2019, by adopting a faster tone an trying to win in our group. An excellent result would be finishing amongst the top ten”. Gil Freitas debuted in rallies only in 2013, but has been notice-worthy from the very start. After debuting on an Opel Kadett GT/E, the racer piloted an Opel Ascona 400 and a Citroën DS3 R5, but it has been at the wheel of the two Porsche 911 GT3 versions that he has achieved his best results. Freitas was the RGT group’s national champion in 2015 and has won, at the general level, two legs of the Coral Rally Championship of Madeira.

Paulo Nunes: “To be the quickest at the RC4”

Paulo Nunes started the year “thinking about competing at the VSH with a Citroën Saxo, since it was certified, we ended up investing in being able to compete with the top racers in the RC4 group. Later on, the possibility to ride a Peugeot 208 R2 arose, and we ended up loving the experience in Faial. At Rally Vinho Madeira we will invest all our strengths, since we want to be the fastest in the group at the first leg and, after that, we will to try to hold up to the last day, so that we can win and become champions”. Paulo Nunes is currently 50 years old and started racing back in the 1980’s. He rode a great variety of vehicles and got known soon for yielding the most of his cars as well as for his “low flight” driving. He has ridden a Citroën Saxo for many years now and was with this model that he became the 2016 VSH champion. In 2018 he won the single-brand competition at the wheel of a Citroën DS3 R1 and, this year, driving a Peugeot 208 R2 – only at Rally of Faial and at the Rally Vinho Madeira – he has won twice being currently the RC4 group second classified.

Pedro Paixão: “To become the youngest winner ever”.

For Pedro Paixão, this season’s balance “is kind of positive. This is my first full-time season with a R5. We have surpassed the record in some of the classifying legs; we competed in two rallies and used three others for learning and improvement. Rally Vinho Madeira is quite a long competition and there are very strong claimants to victory, which means there is a lot of work to do. I cannot, nonetheless, disguise my ambition to become, this year already, the youngest racer to have ever won the Rally. Paixão is now 24 years old, has raced in karting and started motor-racing in 2016 at the Wheel of a Toyota Yaris. He has raced with various RC4 group vehicles, but it was at the commands of a Renault Clio R3 that he won his class championship these last two years. Since the end of 2018, he rides a Skoda Fabia R5, has headed, this year already, various rallies of the Regional Championship and is, currently, the third classified of the Coral Rally Championship of Madeira.

60 years of Rally: The Rally in the 90’s.

At the break of the nineties, the famous Rally Night got abolished for security reasons, but the numbers of Madeirans at the, then called, forest roads, increased. With the changes that characterized the income of European Union funds, the roads and the Rally special legs came up improved, to the point that the cobbled roads, which had delighted spectators and tormented racers and tire suppliers, disappeared. As in many previous editions, the nineteen-nineties were, for Rally Vinho Madeira, an epoch of victories for the Italian racers that competed. Fabrizio Tabaton won the 1990 and 1991 editions of the race on his HF Grifone Lancia. Andrea Aghini, first with the “Deltona” and, later, with Toyota cars, came first in 1992, 1994 and 1998. Once, with a Celica GT Four, the racer managed the incredible feat of winning all special stages of the 1994 edition. This is a record that still holds true and that, taking into account our contemporary competition, will be difficult to overthrow. Another Italian to shine amongst us was Piero Liatti in his various Subaru Italia models. His performances at various international level rallies, such as that of Madeira, where he won in 1995 on an Impreza, allowed him to enter the brand’s official team. Later on, he would show up again amongst us, winning in 1997. In the decade’s last year, and also at the Wheel of a Subaru Impreza WRC, it was the time for the Belgium racer Bruno Thiry, who had become a familiar name in the enrollment lists, came up number one. Even so, one factor that marked these years was the return of Portuguese racers to the top rankings of the race. After various strong bets, Fernando Peres managed to beat all national and foreign competition with his blue and yellow Ford Escort Cosworth. Sitting by his side was the Madeiran Ricardo Caldeira, which made this triumph an even greater reason for celebration. Also in a car of the oval brand, but three years before Peres, Patrick Snijers obtained his last success on the island.

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