Sport
The two-hour GT & Sports Car Cup was among the highlights of the Algarve Classic Festival, which took place at Portimão on 20-21 October. Jon Minshaw streaked away from the field in his Jaguar E-type during the early stages, and was more than 40 secs clear of Carlos Monteverde’s similar car when he pitted under safety-car conditions to hand over to his brother, Jason.
Chris Chiles stopped to give his Cobra to Simon Garrad, and Leo Voyazides did likewise to Simon Hadfield, who started to reel in the Minshaw E-type and took the lead early in the second hour. Minshaw was soon back in with brake problems, and Hadfield’s lead was more than 20 secs when Voyazides got back into the Cobra with 35 minutes to go. He was nonetheless caught by a flying Chiles, who romped to a comfortable victory.
James Cottingham and Max Girardo teamed up in an E-type for the Pre-1963 contest, and saw off a challenge from the Ferrari 250GTO of Monteverde and Gary Pearson, which retired with gearbox failure in the closing stages. Cottingham and Girardo then switched to the former’s Tojeirojaguar and added victory in Saturday evening’s Motor Racing Legends encounter for 1950s sports cars.
Some of the grids were disappointingly sparse, including that for the U2TC contest, won by Monteverde and Pearson (Lotus Cortina). The GT40S of Hadfield/ Voyazides and Georg Nolte/ Michael Funke took a win apiece in Iberian Historic Endurance, while the Ford Escort Mk2 of Mark Freemantle and Tony Paxman won the Historic Touring Car Challenge. John Spiers (Osella PA3) and Andy Wolfe (Lola T70 MKIIIB) shared Pre-1975 sports-car honours, and Miles Griffiths (Lotus 16) and Pete Horsman (Lotus 18/21) did the same in Pre-1966 F1.