The tradition was broken, and a 15-year drought came to an end: Portugal reconquered the bp Ultimate 24 Horas TT Vila de Fronteira. In a race where legends are usually written in French, the team Luís Cidade / João Monteiro / Mário Franco / Pedro Santinho Mendes tore up the script and placed a Portuguese flag back at the very top, guiding their Can-Am Maverick R through 24 hours of chaos, mud, failure, brilliance and heart.
From the early moments, there was something different in the air. Cidade had already claimed pole position and, just hours before the start, had won the 4H SSV with a display of precision that hinted at what was coming. When the main race launched, he needed only a single lap to take the lead — a lead the Portuguese squad would defend, lose, reclaim, nearly drown, and ultimately triumph with in one of the most dramatic editions in recent memory.
Winner
Mechanical heartbreak, however, stalked every favourite. The Franco-Portuguese team of Laurent Poletti briefly took command but ran out of fuel, earning a devastating 15-lap penalty for refuelling outside the allowed zone. The night then fell heavy and unforgiving. Rain carved treacherous grooves through the Terródromo, sending cars into ditches and suspensions into oblivion. One of the biggest casualties was the AC Nissan Proto of Mário Andrade, which tore its rear suspension and plummeted down the order — only to rise again hours later, repaired, furious, and frighteningly fast.
By dawn, the battlefield looked like a place where steel went to die. The Portuguese Can-Am had built a four-lap advantage, but endurance never allows comfort. With five hours to go, an electrical failure froze the leaders in the pits for one hour and forty minutes, swinging the spotlight violently onto Andrade’s rebuilt Nissan Proto. Suddenly, the impossible was happening: the team chasing its 10th victory in Fronteira was leading, the gap shrinking, the tension unbearable.
And then the race twisted again. Andrade’s Proto began to lose power. Alternator belts snapped — once, twice, three times — forcing repeated stops that drained precious minutes. Out on track, the Portuguese SSV specialists pushed with everything they had, slicing the deficit lap after lap until they finally retook control of the race. The closing hour became a raw, emotional countdown: two teams separated by only four minutes, each fighting physics, exhaustion and fate.
2nd place
When the chequered flag finally dropped, Fronteira erupted.
Portugal had its victory back.
“It was brutally hard,” admitted Luís Cidade. “We had a huge setback, but the team never broke. Two races, two wins — I’m happier than I am tired.”
João Monteiro was even more direct: “Nobody deserves to suffer this much.”
And a smiling, yet frustrated Mário Andrade simply said: “Second place is not enough. Four minutes… nothing. Next year we come back for number ten.”
After 1,440 minutes of endurance, every team left with scars — and with stories that will be told for years.
3rd place
(Extracted from classification PDF)
1º — Luís Cidade / João Monteiro / Mário Franco / Pedro Santinho Mendes
Can-Am Maverick R — 96 laps — 24h01m27.321s
2º — Mário Andrade / Cédric Duple / Yann Morize / Nicolas Cassiede
Proto AC Nissan — 96 laps — +4m13.137s
3º — Johan Senders / Stijn Van Erp / Richard Timmerman
Fiat Fullback Proto — 92 laps — 1º Ultimate
Winners by Category:
Challenger: Amândio Alves / João Silva / Márcio Reis / Rogério Reis — 91 laps
Promoção C: Nuno Coelho / Gonçalo Gameiro / Sérgio Cruz — 83 laps
Stock: Kala Senders / Flávio Alves / Marco Beumer / Michael Braun — 81 laps
Promoção A: Luís Ferreira / Lucas Subtil / Bruno Custódio / Diogo Rogério — 76 laps
Promoção B: Samuel Lima / André Fonseca / Mário Batista / Ivo Fernandes — 41 laps
Source: ACP Motorsport
Adaptation: Rally-Raid Network
Photos: ImagensDesportivas.pt
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