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Racereport 2003 / 08 Estoril


Italien-Austrian Friendship

 

 

 

“The prize-giving ceremony was the highlight of the whole weekend, ” said Series Coordinator Ronny Bredhauer, who was very pleased over the successful finale in the Portuguese seaside resort Estoril. The awarding of the trophies was celebrated by the Scuderia del Portello Team with South European euphoria. They not only celebrated the title of their Alfa Romeo Giuletta Team Marco Cajani/Marco Rossi (both I) in the Period E (cars built up to 1961) but also the victory of Scuderia- Team colleague, Dieter-Karl Anton (A), who crowned his first full season in the FIA-TC’65 with the Champion’s crown in the Period F (cars built up to 1965). In Estoril as well, he did not allow himself to be stopped with his Alfa Romeo GTA – not by Mikael Gustavsson’s success in his Ford Lotus Cortina in the first race and not by a “Stop-and-Go penalty” in the second race. He dethroned Claude Boissy/Alain Miran (F), the Champions of the 2003 Season.

 

 

 

The second race will certainly go down in the annals of the FIA-TC’65. On a wet course, Graham Churchill/Peter Baldwin (GB) secured the first Mini-Cooper overall win since the Nürburgring race in 2002. Behind the new Champion Dieter-Karl Anton, three teams fought for the third position and passed the black-and white chequered flag side by side. The Ford Lotus Cortina duo Carl Gustavsson (S) and Harry Vaulkhard (GB) in fact crossed the finishing line at the same time within a thousandth second. Behind them, John Smirthwaite lost the fight in his Ford Mustang in less than five hundredth (!) of a second later and had to be contented with the fifth position. After a microscopic examination of the fractions of seconds, Carl Gustavsson was awarded third place on the podium.

 

 

 

But Dieter-Karl Anton left the most southern point of the FIA-TC’65 Tour as the beaming winner of the Period F. For the first time since the glorious days of the Scuderia del Portello with drivers like Sandro Munari, Carlo Facetti or Giorgio Pianta, an Alfa Romeo Giuletta from the Period E as well as a Alfa Romeo GTA driver in the Period F, stood at the top of the FIA European Challenge for Historic Touring Cars.

 

 


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