Portimao: Mad Croc preview

Portugal should be the one!

This weekend the FIA GT1 World Championship arrives in Portugal, near the beautiful coast of the Algarve. The recently build track of Portimao already hosted a FIA GT race last year and is now the Portugese venue for the brand new world championship. Mad Croc already landed in the warm south and Xavier Maassen talked us through the track, which should suit the Corvette.

"Portimao is a nice place to come and the track is amazing, it's like a roller coaster... I love it very much and I think our car should be very good here. Corvette won here last year and we are really keen on reproducing that victory. Me and my new team mate Julien Jousse will do everything possible to score the first Mad Croc victory in the Championship's race on Sunday!"

"The first corner is a difficult one, not too fast, but certainly not slow, you really need a well-balanced car here. The real first slow corner is the third one and the braking is delicate. Now the roller coaster really starts with an uphill section until turn four, a blind and the outcome is important for the for the following long straight.

"At the end of the straight, you go down to a hairpin, really hard braking and than it's fun again with an uphill. The sixth corner is fast, the seventh and eight are hard braking again. Exiting turn eight is a slow process and now approaching turn nine, one of the most fantastic turns of this track. It's really the place where your stomach goes up and down..."

"All the way uphill to turn 10, the most difficult one in my opinion. It's a blind turn which has to be taken in permanent braking." Than it's downhill again, with another hard braking corner, number 12, before you go to 13 and 14, the last one, which leads to the finish line."

"I really love it and can't wait for the race!"

-source: mad croc