Portuguese MotoGP

Perhaps the most challenge track on the race calendar, the Portuguese MotoGP offers tricky chicanes, heavy braking zones and bump straights, meaning that anyone with serious intentions of racking up champions points at the Estoril circuit will be made to work for them.

2011 Season

After a four week absence MotoGP returned with a bang as the Portuguese MotoGP got underway in the first week in May. 2010 Champion Jorge Lorenzo may have been leading the way to undermine Repsol Honda’s early season dominance, but they struck back in the form of Dani Pedrosa, who stole victory from under Lorenzo’s nose in the closing stages. His victory was made all the more remarkable as it marked his return from serious shoulder surgery just weeks before.

Lorenzo now sits just four points clear at the top of the rider standings, with Honda pair Pedrosa and Casey Stoner breathing down his neck. Both men have proved themselves quick this year but have been bogged down by other incidents on the track, and after victory for the team in Portugal both men will look to prove why they are currently the most feared team on the grid.

Overview

Although only a MotoGp venue since 2000, the Autódromo do Estoril has been around since the 1970′s. Now, with the fiendishly tight chicane added, the best riders in the world converge on the circuit 28 km from Lisbon to test their nerves against a track that has taken many prisoners in its time. A quick opening half of the lap gives way to a challenging second and third sector, with the 13th and final sector leading into a home straight just shy of a kilometre. Nine right handers and only four lefts give some indication of the unbalanced demands on tyres the track brings, but even the tight right handers are no match for the weather, which has forced this year’s race to be moved from October to May in an attempt to avoid the rain that traditionally hangs heavy around the circuit.

History

The 4.182 km track has been around since the 1972, hosting European F2 races, before a series of redevelopments enabled it to stage its first Formula 1 Grand Prix in1984. With the introduction to the MotoGP calendar, Valentino Rossi took to the circuit like a duck to water and is by far the most successful rider in Portugal, racking up five race victories in just 12 races, marking himself out as the master of Estoril.

Key Moments

2011

The latest instalment of the Portuguese MotoGP race proved to be one of the most thrilling. Despite the switch of date the rains inevitably came, but that could not stop Dani Pedrosa setting the riders championship alight with a performance that will be remembered for some time, if only for his remarkable recover from injury.

With a shoulder problem dogging the first two races of the season, the Spaniard took advantage of a four week break in the race calendar to go under the knife, and in his first race back he eased past reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo in the closing stages to reel in his rival and reignite the championship battle.

2008

Although Rossi has proved himself the master of the Estoril circuit, then Jorge Lorenzo is hot on his heels as the man waiting to take his crown. Having taken his third straight pole of the 2008 season, the then 20-year-old displayed none of the nerves usually associated with riders contesting their first ever MotoGP season to secure his first ever race victory. Holding off Rossi and Dani Pedrosa in the rain in a tight finish would only have sweetened his victory, the first of three in Estoril. Just two years later he would be crowned World Champion, but it was in Portugal he proved he could mix it with the big boys.

2001

Having managed a podium finish in the first race held at the first MotoGP race at the Estoril circuit, Valentino Rossi secured his first victory at the track a year later, a win which began a sequence of victories that would see him become the most successful rider in the race’s short history.