Miguel Campos Rally de Portugal preview

Miguel Campos prepared for the new Rally de Portugal.
Six WRC's will increase the competition.

The TMN Rally de Portugal is finally on the right tracks for it's beginning, and young Portuguese driver, Miguel Campos finds himself hopeful of attaining yet another win with his Peugeot 206 WRC. Campos will be competing against more five WRC's on gravel in this exclusively new calendar event. Upon being retrieved from the World Championship, the Rally of Portugal has found its new home in the northern region of Portugal, Macedo de Cavaleiros.

"It is a totally new event. None of us know the stages, so we are all on equal ground, as I am sure this will be a very interesting event in competitive terms. As usual, we will start fighting for the win right from the beginning", remarked the Peugeot Total Silver Team SG driver, aware of the added difficulties now that six WRC´s are enrolled.

"This rally will witness a larger amount of WRC's than usual, especially since this event only counts for the National Championship. This only motivates us more. We will be against international recognized rally drivers such as Didier Auriol (Toyota Corolla WRC) and Andrea Aghini ( Subaru Impreza WRC), although our goal maintains the same", concluded Miguel Campos

Being the youngest candidate for the win ( 28 yrs old), Miguel Campos has proven a great amount of maturity with his three previous wins in the portuguese championship: "We are about to enter a crucial stage of the championship where the competition increases considerably along the next 3 events: the TMN Rally de Portugal, Rali Sata Azores and the Rali Vinho da Madeira, which only contributes to the team's motivation", explained the Peugeot driver who, accompanied by his co-driver, Carlos Magalhães, has already scored 30 points and attained a comfortable advantage to runner-up Bruno Magalhães.

The rally is drawn upon 8 special stages, with 164,54 Km of chrono passages, in a total of 310,15 Km of event to be run in just two days. The start-off is on Friday, the 7th of June, with the fist special stage - Corujas ( 22,5 Km) planned for 17h48. The grand finale of the TMN Rally de Portugal will be on Saturday the 8th of June with the passage through the last special stage in Bornes 2 ( 17,7 Km).

Excluded from the World Championship in 2002, the TMN Rally of Portugal organized by ACP Sport will try to impress in the remote region of Trás-os-Montes, at Macedo de Cavaleiro city 200 km away from Porto.

-dca-