2024 - Visiting Portugal for Portimao and Estoril for track days - Part 1 of 2

Visiting Portugal for Portimao and Estoril for track days

RSR Spa Portugal Track Days

In April I made the pilgrimage to Portugal for a three-day track event with RSR – Ron Simons Racing.  RSR is famous for their Nürburgring and Spa-Francorchamps operations where you can rent their cars for the track and do their track days.  I once rented an Alfa 75 from RSR in the early 1990’s to learn the Nürburgring, so they know the track business.

RSR track days are high-end events.  A fitted-out driver lounge with refreshments and snacks throughout the day.  Lunch is catered for.  In the European style, alcohol (wine and beer) is available to partake at lunch).  A champagne reception happens at the end of the last day.  Majority of the cars are late model road or race Porsches.  This is no guarantee of driving standards though after my experience of last October when in two days, 8 Porsches were written off at Spa-Francorchamps.   RSR had approximately 20 rental Porsches present that they had trucked to Portugal for customers.  The rest were those who either drove to the circuit or had arranged a truck delivery. 

Two circuits were on offer this trip.  Two days at Autodromo Internacional Algarve, also commonly known at Portimao Circuit, and one day at Estoril Circuit, located on the western outskirts of Lisbon.   My plan was to fly into Lisbon, pick up the rental car and head 2.5 hours south to the Algarve, complete the Portimao days, then drive north to Cascais where I would base myself for the Estoril day. 

I had been here previously with a rental Caterham back in 2017 and the Portimao Circuit made such an impression that I vowed to come back one day.  2024 saw me live up to that promise.

The Algarve

I arrived slightly early to have a weekend to knock off jetlag by staying in Lagos, about a 20-minute drive from the Portimao Circuit.  If you have the time, then this is a good place to base yourself and explore.  The coastline here is famous for its beaches, sea caves, dolphins, and stunning scenery. 

While I initially spent the weekend on the beach at Lagos, I shifted to the Portimao Race Resort next to the circuit to make it an easier commute for the two days.  While it does have spectacular views of the circuit, there is a lack of quality dining options.  I would have been better to stay in Lagos where I was – hindsight is easy!

Portimao Circuit

This circuit was completed in 2008.  For a new circuit it is totally old school.  Lots of blind crests and an interesting mix of fast sweepers and slow turns to make it technical and challenging as a driver.  Some seriously major elevation changes make it somewhat a rollercoaster of a ride.  While it did host a Formula 1 race during the Covid era, it is more well known for being a round of the World Superbike Championships. 

The track layout begins with a deceptively fast right-hand sweeper that was best taken (for me) by dropping a gear, followed by a full throttle right sweeper before hard on the brakes and down a gear for a tight right hairpin, then sweep steeply uphill to the left where the exit is blind, and the car wants to rotate left as you crest the hill while apply throttle.  A short straight then steeply downhill braking zone leading into a left-hand hairpin.  Uphill past the media center accelerating hard with a mild left sweep before pivoting the car for a very far right downhill.  Then hard on the brakes for a 120 degree right steep uphill.  Again, on exit, its blind but you accelerate hard over the crest then steeply down through a left sweeper, hard on throttle the entire way, before swooping upwards over a blind crest, to a plateau where you brake hard to make the right.  This plateau is rather featureless which makes it challenging to pick out the braking and turn in points.  Immensely satisfying when you get it right.  Then exit steep downhill for another down and up swooping sweeper to the left where there is a sharp brake for the 140-degree left tight hairpin.  Next is a downhill off camber right-hander leading to a short straight where you build speed for the very fast right-hander swoop down to the main straight.  Just a brilliant use of elevation and challenging corners.  Huge g-forces from the turns, I felt sore the next morning. 

There were 60 cars signed up.  Open pit lane format usually only means half that number are on track at any one time.  On a 3-mile circuit that’s not bad.  The usual exceptions apply – first 30-40 minutes plus the hour after lunch are when everyone goes out.  Common sense says to avoid that period as it is slightly nuts. 

It was a Porsche benefit event.  Two-thirds of the cars were Porsche.  We had fun trying to calculate the value of the cars in the fleet, but it was over ten million dollars. 

The format of the day was open pit lane.  The first 20 mins was a beginner session of passing only on the straight to allow people time to familiarize themselves with the layout before allowing full passing.  In practice, by lap two the usual passing rules applied – pass anywhere with a point by and even then the point by was not waited for.  Complicating things, there was confusion by some people using hazards to indicate their slow vehicles.  You had to have your wits about you as the closing speeds were epically quick.  A pro McLaren GT race car and some Porsche Cup race cars that were doing some testing ahead of that weekend’s race event were pulling very quick times.  It was hard to spot them early enough in the mirrors to keep out of the way. 

I was in my usual Caterham 420R.  It had been trucked out by TFL Racing from their base in the Midlands in the United Kingdom along with 5 other customer cars – four other Caterhams and one Porsche 718 GT4.

It is the usual road going 420R SV.  2L Duratec with 210hp.  Five speed Miata box.  3.9 rear end.  Track suspension pack.  Upgraded with some quality Tillet carbon seats plus the track day cage which I put on last year after some organizers started mandating cages on Caterhams. 

The letdown of the car package is the five-speed gearbox.  It really lacks gear options, and the spread of ratios has some big gaps where the rev drop is not optimal.  Fifth gear is an overdrive and is not always usable on track as it can make the car go slower if there is a gradient. 

I made it worse for myself by somehow bending the 5^th gear selector fork in the opening lap.  No idea how.  Never done it before.  Over 35 years and 100,000 miles on track and I made a complete hash of it.  Unfortunately, the fix is gearbox out and that was not going to happen.  The only practical solution was to limit myself to 1^st through 4^th gears and a redline of 7000rpm.  That meant I was only about 120 mph maximum along the straights.  I was always going to get gobbled up at Portimao as that long straight is well suited to the Porsches.  The rest of the circuit suited the Caterhams as it was tight and technical, but the advantage was lost at the straight.  Overall assessment – it was a bias towards favoring the Porsches. 

The other TFL supported Caterhams are mostly 420 race cars.  The same 2L Duratec but with a Sadev sequential.  There was one road Caterham there – another 420R like mine but he had the 6 speed Caterham gearbox.  Same engine as mine but when I followed, I would watch him walk away from me out of corners as he was able to use the closer ratio gear set to get the engine into the optimal rev range. 

TFL Racing

TFL Racing have supported me for quite a few years.  Both Phill and Sarah were at Bookatrack who I had used as my track day operator and rental Caterham supplier for 10 years before it changed hands, so it was an easy thing for me to shift to TFL to be my track day support business.  Many of the former Bookatrack customers are still around at TFL which makes it fun.   TFL are one of the bigger operators in the UK for race and track day support, handling something like 30 Caterhams and the odd Radical or Atom. 

The best bit about going to an event like this with TFL Racing is that they take care of the small details.  Both Sarah and Phill sort out the scheduling, suggest possible places to stay near the circuit, facilitate booking with track day organizers, deal with any European import issues, prepare the car, fuel it and maintain it on the day, and most important supply the drivers with tea and biscuits (cookies for the Americans).   I know most of the other customers from past track events, so it is very social during the day which makes it far more enjoyable.  A secret bonus is that Sarah was a very handy racer in a Caterham and so knows the circuits well if you want to tap into her experience of learning the lines.  All you need to do is turn up with your driving kit of helmet, gloves, suitable clothes/race suit, driving boots, and a pack of biscuits to keep Phill happy and snacking all day. 

If you want to rent a fully prepared and supported Caterham for a track day, then TFL have a nice looking Caterham 420 race car ready to go.  Some USA7s members did a share rental for four days at Spa-Francorchamps last year and one lucky USA7s member has booked it for Spa in October this year.  Obviously prices are not cheap but for the true driving enthusiast who wants to experience a bucket list circuit like Portimao, Spa-Francorchamps, Zandvoort, Brands Hatch GP, etc., then this is one of the only makes to make it happen. 

The Portimao Pits

The quality of cars in the pits was tremendous.  Lots of quality items to mentally shop for as you wandered the pits.

Two BAC Monos were present.  While I had come across these before, my experience was most watching them break down, usually from electrical issues, and being towed back into the pits.  Not the case with these ones – well prepared and perfectly reliable.  Loved the engineering on them.  Blisteringly quick too. 

Normally, most track days I do have restrictive noise limits. Not so at Portimao where there was a 130db limit.  Even unsilenced Porsche Cup cars would not have failed.  So that saw a lot of owners drop their track day silencers.  This one fell off a 718 Cayman GT4.

I had a chance to check out a KTM X-Bow in person.  Never seen one in real life before.  Very chunky design.  Audi A4 drivetrain with a 320hp turbocharged 2L 4-cylinder with a 6-speed manual gearbox.  So it was quick.  But I found I could slightly out brake it in my Caterham and I thought I was having less issues in the corners than it was.  I would not mind having a drive though!

Some other expensive toys.

In the pits next door was a Maserati coupe race car.  It was so heavy that it needed three guys to make the thing move when pushing.  My Caterham could easily catch and pass it.  He started braking a full 200 feet before I did into the hairpin.  It seemed to have regular electrical fails.  You could smell its brakes half a circuit away.  The end of the day was when it arrived in a cloud of steam.  Oh well.

Unreliability did strike the Caterhams of TFL too.  On the morning of the second day, one of the 420 race cars lost an alternator belt which as it was escaping bent the alternator bracket.  Later, the same car dropped a valve.  It had been a long time since the last engine refresh, so these things are expected.  Then the other road Caterham lost its clutch while out on the circuit and was towed back in.  That car was out of action for the next circuit but its owner had a backup plan to be back out on track at Estoril.   This is the catch with long distance track days.  There are no guarantees that something will not go wrong but at least with a professional operator like TFL you have a fighting chance of getting back in the game.   

Some video to give you an idea.  True to form, I selected the wrong microphone setting on the camera so there is no sound.  There is however data. 

This was my fastest session of the two days where I did a 2min7 lap.  To put that in context, a 420 race car did a 2min neat lap around the same time.  The 7 second gap is about right if you deduct from my time:

-              The race car’s 6 speed sequential gear box where you use 2-3-4-5-6 gears while I only have 2-3-4.

-              The race car had Avon F3 slicks on while my road car had Avon ZZR extreme compound – that’s 2-3 seconds a lap alone.

-              The race car has a 3.6 rear end ratio which gives it roughly 10mph higher top end speed.

-              The race car is a race S3 chassis while mine is a road SV chassis so that is a 185-pound weight advantage.

It just goes to show how much difference there is between Caterham race and road cars.  

Unfortunately, the video does have the effect of flattening the elevation change.  It looks a lot flatter than it really is in real life.  You can also see me start to go to change to 5^th gear from habit then have to stop myself.  I want a lot more seat time around there.  I was still experimenting on lines by the end of the second day and from reviewing some of the data this week, some of the really optimal lines are not the most logical.

Brilliant circuit.  One of my top 5 circuits anywhere in the world (which are Bathurst, Spa-Francorchamps, Zandvoort, Dijon-Prenois, Portimao).

Part 2 of this Article is located here: