2015 Portuguese Grand Prix

  2015 Portuguese Grand Prix

Race details
Race 4 of the 2015 Superleague season
Date	9th April, 2015
Official name	2015 Portuguese Grand Prix
Location	Algarve International Circuit, Portimão
Course	Permanent racing facility 2.915 mi / 4.691 km
Distance	65 laps, 189.475 mi / 304.930 km
Weather	-
Pole position
Driver	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul-Valiant
Time	1:16.894
Fastest Lap
Driver	David Fidock	Hawkeye-Potentia
Time	1:17.472
Podium
First	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul-Valiant
Second	David Fidock	Hawkeye-Potentia
Third	Agustin Canapino	Nordsjoen-Martex

The 2015 Portuguese Grand Prix was the fourth round of the 2015 Superleague season and took place on the Algarve International Circuit, at Portimão, on 9th April 2015.

It was the first running of the Portuguese Grand Prix since 2010 and the first to be held at Portimão. However, the return was short-lived, with the Grand Prix being dropped from the 2016 calendar.

Philipp Puschke scored his first Superleague victory, having also taken pole. It was his Vod:Bul team's first victory since 2007 and the first victory for the Valiant engine. Puschke was chased hard by reigning champion David Fidock, who crossed the line in his Hawkeye less than one and a half seconds behind. Both were comfortably ahead of third-placed man Agustin Canapino driving for Nordsjoen, who crossed the line around a half a minute later.

While Fidock and Puschke's teammates both finished outside the top 10, the race was a great result for Nordsjoen, with Canapino's teammate Florian Geier finishing 5th. Despite Puschke's victory, Nordsjoen extended their lead in the Constructors' table to 4 points over Vod:Bul.

Also finishing strongly was Target Racing with their drivers Jordan Weekes and Sven de Vries finishing an excellent 4th and 6th respectively. de Vries only just held off Torrent's Petter Kaasa by two-hundredths of a second. Close behind was Tom Parker of CSG Racing, but he and his teammate Lewis Redshaw, who finished 10th, were still way off the pace of the leaders; Redshaw finished almost a minute behind Puschke. The result saw CSG slip to fourth in the table behind Hawkeye, while Canapino jumped ahead of Redshaw to third in the Drivers' table.

Portugal saw a host of driver changes. At Midnight Motorsport, the departing Nick Rowland was replaced by Tom van der Voort who would retain the seat, with the except of two races, for the rest of the season. Gergo Baldi had departed Hawkeye and Jason Muscat took over the seat again. Dovydas Petravicius left Red Archer VRT and Lars Brugman took over for Portugal only, though succeeded in out-qualifying teammate Deividas Misiulis and brought the car home in the points. Sandeep Chodha made the first of many guest appearances during the season at Portugal, filling in at Green Stripes Racing for David Nel in what would be the South African's only absence of the year. At Kernow, Matthew Allington filled in for one race for Bart De Vos. Lastly, Edonis Engineering reserve driver Lewis McGlade made the first of two consecutive drives for the team, driving James Johnson's #69 car in Portugal.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Time	Gap	Grid
1	14	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul - Valiant	1:16.894	–	1
2	7	Alex Cooper	Midnight - Potentia	1:16.949	+0.056	2
3	1	David Fidock	Hawkeye - Potentia	1:17.099	+0.205	3
4	77	Sven de Vries	Target - Trinity	1:17.152	+0.258	4
5	13	Tom Parker	CSG - Potentia	1:17.260	+0.366	151
6	27	Florian Geier	Nordsjoen - Martex	1:17.324	+0.430	5
7	19	Agustin Canapino	Nordsjoen - Martex	1:17.344	+0.451	6
8	4	Fran Lopez	Edonis - Valiant	1:17.392	+0.499	7
9	99	Mindaugas Klumbis	Torrent - Potentia	1:17.458	+0.565	8
10	25	Tom van der Voort	Midnight - Potentia	1:17.481	+0.588	9
11	24	Lewis Redshaw	CSG - Potentia	1:17.519	+0.625	10
12	66	Jordan Weekes	Target - Trinity	1:17.527	+0.634	11
13	88	Petter Kaasa	Torrent - Potentia	1:17.591	+0.698	12
14	21	Lars Brugman	Red Archer - Valiant	1:17.730	+0.837	13
15	6	Deividas Misiulis	Red Archer - Valiant	1:17.831	+0.938	14
16	15	Oskari Kantonen	Vod:Bul - Valiant	1:17.931	+1.037	16
17	2	Jason Muscat	Hawkeye - Potentia	1:18.042	+1.148	17
18	8	Jarl Teien	Woods - Trinity	1:18.081	+1.187	18
19	5	Kenney Lybeer	Nijo - Trinity	1:18.234	+1.340	19
20	10	Mikael Tuomaala	Nijo - Trinity	1:18.274	+1.381	20
21	45	Kieran Ryan	Phoenix - Trinity	1:18.422	+1.528	271
22	83	Matthew Allington	Kernow - Trinity	1:18.596	+1.703	21
23	69	Lewis McGlade	Edonis - Valiant	1:18.739	+1.845	22
24	20	Sandeep Chodha	Green Stripes - Valiant	1:18.742	+1.849	23
25	46	Mikko Jakonen	Phoenix - Trinity	1:19.211	+2.318	24
26	12	Mark Wicks	Kernow - Trinity	1:19.240	+2.346	25
27	9	Roy Schroten	Woods - Trinity	1:19.409	+2.515	26
28	11	Ben Horrill	Green Stripes - Valiant	no time	–	282

Notes:

• ¹ — Tom Parker and Kieran Ryan were both given 10-place grid penalties for avoidable contact at the previous round.
• ² — Ben Horrill had been given a 40-place grid penalty for dangerous driving at the previous round and set no time.

Race

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	14	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul - Valiant	65	26:34.208	1	25
2	1	David Fidock	Hawkeye - Potentia	65	+1.456	3	20
3	19	Agustin Canapino	Nordsjoen - Martex	65	+30.078	6	16
4	66	Jordan Weekes	Target - Trinity	65	+34.735	11	13
5	27	Florian Geier	Nordsjoen - Martex	65	+45.900	5	11
6	77	Sven de Vries	Target - Trinity	65	+50.053	4	10
7	88	Petter Kaasa	Torrent - Potentia	65	+50.222	12	9
8	13	Tom Parker	CSG - Potentia	65	+50.617	15	8
9	7	Alex Cooper	Midnight - Potentia	65	+57.445	2	7
10	24	Lewis Redshaw	CSG - Potentia	65	+59.350	10	6
11	25	Tom van der Voort	Midnight - Potentia	65	+1:06.120	9	5
12	2	Jason Muscat	Hawkeye - Potentia	65	+1:06.682	17	4
13	21	Lars Brugman	Red Archer - Valiant	64	+1 Lap	13	3
14	8	Jarl Teien	Woods - Trinity	64	+1 Lap	18	2
15	4	Fran Lopez	Edonis - Valiant	64	+1 Lap	7	1
16	5	Kenney Lybeer	Nijo - Trinity	64	+1 Lap	19
17	99	Mindaugas Klumbis	Torrent - Potentia	64	+1 Lap	8
18	9	Roy Schroten	Woods - Trinity	64	+1 Lap	26
19	15	Oskari Kantonen	Vod:Bul - Valiant	64	+1 Lap	16
20	45	Kieran Ryan	Phoenix - Trinity	64	+1 Lap	27
21	83	Matthew Allington	Kernow - Trinity	63	+2 Laps	21
22	20	Sandeep Chodha	Green Stripes - Valiant	63	+2 Laps	23
23	69	Lewis McGlade	Edonis - Valiant	63	+2 Laps	22
24	11	Ben Horrill	Green Stripes - Valiant	63	+2 Laps	28
251	10	Mikael Tuomaala	Nijo - Trinity	50	Did not Finish	20
Ret	12	Mark Wicks	Kernow - Trinity	28	Did not Finish	25
Ret	6	Deividas Misiulis	Red Archer - Valiant	22	Accident	14
Ret	46	Mikko Jakonen	Phoenix - Trinity	2	Did not Finish	24

Notes:

• ¹ — Mikael Tuomaala was classified as he completed over 75% of the race distance.

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings

	Pos	Driver	Points
	1	Philipp Puschke	81
	2	David Fidock	71
1	3	Agustin Canapino	57
1	4	Lewis Redshaw	48
	5	Alex Cooper	43

Constructors' Championship standings

	Pos	Constructor	Points
	1	Nordsjoen-Martex	88
	2	Vod:Bul-Valiant	84
1	3	Hawkeye-Potentia	75
1	4	CSG-Potentia	71
	5	Midnight-Potentia	60

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

External links

• Official results
• Broadcast replay

Preceded by: 2015 Spanish Grand Prix	GPVWC Superleague 2015 season	Succeeded by: 2015 Turkish Grand Prix
Preceded by: 2010 Portuguese Grand Prix	Portuguese Grand Prix	Succeeded by: none