The racing weekend in Portugal took place in an unexpectedly cold weather. Eight trucks entered the Super Race Truck class. The organizers however made the arrangement usual for the invitation races, which are not part of the European Cup, and sent the Super Trucks on the track together with thirteen entrants on the Race Truck class.
The track has considerable differences is altitude and numerous left and right sharp turns. Right from the initial practice sessions the races were dominated by CAT and Buggyra trucks. Both teams shared the forefront positions in the time practices. The fastest was Harri Luostarinen, but the newcomer in this class, David Vršecký, approached him to mere 1.37 seconds in his very first start. Gerd Koerber was another 0.22 second behind. His loss was mainly due to wrong composition of the differential. The night shift eliminated this problem and also the GyrTech engine was changed in his truck.
The result was clearly visible in the very first qualifying race of Sunday. Koerber was considerably faster and finished second after Luostarinen with the loss of 2.856 seconds. David Vršecký managed well and took the third place together with his first cup in the Super Truck class.The pilots were doing well also in the 2nd Qualifying race. Gerd repeated his second place. Unfortunately David had to retire from place three in the middle of the race. An engine failure was the reason, namely low oil pressure. Only two hours remained till the start of the final race but nevertheless the team of the mechanics was able to repair the defect. David managed to start at least from the pits, but unfortunately enough he suffered again from the engine malfunction. This time it was the turbocharger. For the third time Gerd achieved second place after Luostarinen.
The results achieved by both pilots are excellent, nevertheless the points will be given under the circumstances of much tougher competition only in Barcelona in a week.
