Season 2012 – Baptista and Sylvio a second time
In 2012, Ricardo Baptista and Clemente Lunardi fought for the championship title in a personal level. In the Challenge class, Sylvio de Barros confirmed himself as the championship title favourite in the second half of one of the most competitive seasons ever.
In 2012, Ricardo Baptista and Clemente Lunardi fought for the championship title in a personal level. A duel that started favouring Lunardi but finished with the victory of Baptista in a season marked by awesome races. In the Challenge class, something similiar happened: Sylvio confirmed himself as the championship title favourite in the second half of one of the most competitive seasons ever.
As in 201, the season started in Portugal. Only this time, two portuguese circuits were visited. Besides Estoril, the season’s opening venue, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge raced at the very modern Algarve racetrack. In addition to getting to know one of the most selective and demanding current track layouts in the world, drivers from classes Cup and Challenge had a special surprise: enjoying classic formula 1 cars in exclusive practice sessions. AGS (the former racing team) was in charge of delivery Prost, Arrows and custom cars for the driver’s entertainment. An incredible feeling. Other surprises in that season was the debut race in the brand new Velo Città racetrack in Mogi Guaçu (São Paulo), the support evento for the FIA WEC 6 hours of São Paulo race and the grand finale together with the Brazilian Stock Car series in Interlagos. Experiences so positive that the will be repeated in 2013.
In terms of sport, the Cup championship had two distinct parts. In the first Clemente Lunardi was dominant: he won four of the five early races. Yet, Ricardo Baptista finished four times in second place, keeping himself very close in the scoreboard. In Velo Città, Baptista capitalized on top of a bad result by Lunardi and won for the first time in the season, taking the overall leadership. In the seventh round that took place in Interlagos as the support event for the Brazilian Formula 1 GP, Lunardi won but the accumulated advantage by Baptista was enough to secure his championship victory by finishing second place.
Rookie Fabio Viscardi finished the season in the third place, having won one of the support events for the FIA WEC. Marcel Visconde, fourth overall, managed three wins in the season – one of them, in Curitiba, after an epic duel with Baptista. Marcelo Franco and Tom Valle completed the winners list, with a win a first place for each.
In the Challenge class, “undefined” was the word to describe the first half of the season. Gilberto Farah, Eduardo Azevedo, Ipe Ferraiolo, Daniel Schneider and Gui Affonso shared victories in the first seven races. Meanwhile, Sylvio was betting in consistency and kept himself in the top positions in the scoreboard. Two wins in a row gave him enough advantage to close the bets with a second place in the Brazilian GP’s support race. In the fight for the second place, Schneider won over Farah, Affonso e Azevedo.
