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On a warm and sunny Sunday morning this November, the end of season finale for the inaugural Caterham Academy Portugal took place at Braga in northern Portugal.

Unique in Caterham racing, this was a multi-driver two hour endurance race, including mid-distance refuelling, ably assisted by series sponsor Esso, who also added a little sparkle to the grid by providing all twenty three cars with a grid-girl! In usual Portuguese style, an enjoyable event was typified by ‘Team Relax’, who sauntered round at the back of the field waving as they passed and playing to the crowd with some increasingly uncontrolled sideways exits and even entries to corners! However, at the front it was fierce business as usual, as Ricardo Megre stamped his authority on the Portuguese title in his Pnuevita backed car, by breaking the tow of the squabbling pack to give him a free run from lights to flag.

Much to the delight of the large crowd, enjoying what was the headline race of the meeting, twenty-three cars started and twenty-three cars finished, keeping the battles and the entertainment going for the whole two hours. For those that wanted to get the feeling of car for themselves, one of the race cars was used immediately afterwards and for the rest of the day to provide tyre-squealing spectator rides around the twisting Braga kart course (a major karting venue)

"We’ve had a fantastic season of racing" said Antonio Pereira, head of Caterham Portugal and championship organiser "It’s testament to the quality and design of the Caterham that all the cars completed the two hour race and some even drove home afterwards! I’m confident next year’s Academy will be even bigger, supported by this year’s cars that are moving up to our Graduate series."

Perhaps the highlight of the Caterham Academy Portugal 2007 was the street race at Porto, part of the WTCC and Historic GP weekends in July – a real coup for the Caterham Portugal team and one of TWO street race events for the series! Antonio assures us that Caterhams will be back on the grid when World Touring Cars visit Porto again in 2009…