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Portugal was originally run on mixed surfaces with short tarmac leg on Sintra forests and most of the rally on gravel to the north. As Sintra was very close to Lisboa, capital of Portugal, the crowds were huge and true to latin traditions, very eager to see the cars.

Already in 1979 Martin Holmes reported that huge crowds at Sintra virtually prevented any competitive driving, drivers only tackling the stages to get through to latter part of the route. Bull-fighting with rally cars was a dangerous hobby and in 1986 local driver Joaquim Santos' Group B Ford RS200 left the road and ploughed into crowd, killing three. Having seen the footage I must say it was a small miracle that number of fatalities remained that low. Full account of the events can be found in 1986 edition of the rally.

Problem was not only the number of the masses but their behaviour too. Admittedly in Monte Carlo spectators did shovel snow on the route to make cars go off but in Portugal stones were thrown at cars and various obstacles placed on the road, the human wall of spectators not being the least one.

There are plenty of famous places in Portugal. Sintra was one until it was dropped, Arganil stages are another but perhaps the most filmed place is the giant jump at Fafe. Film fails to fully capture majesty of this barren place, as seen on right.

Last time Rally of Portugal was run on WRC level in 2001. Plagued by bad weather, event was full of rain, mud and in places very thick fog. This was used as an excuse and event was dropped in favour of Rally Deutschland. However, organisers did not give up and for 2007 completely revised event made a return, this time based south in Algarve. Rally returned to northern Portugal in 2015, this time based in Matosinhos.

Old plate with Portugal airline TAP as title sponsor. Used from 1994 until 2001.

Famous giant jump at Fafe
Muddy edition of 2001 was to be the last one
There has never been lack of spectators in Portugal, quite the contrary
Driver wins
Ogier, Sebastien (6) Alen, Markku (5) Biasion, Massimo (3) Mikkola, Hannu (3) Kankkunen, Juha (2) Loeb, Sebastien (2) Makinen, Tommi (2) McRae, Colin (2) Rovanpera, Kalle (2) Sainz, Carlos (2) Burns, Richard (1) Delecour, Francois (1) Evans, Elfyn (1) Latvala, Jari-Matti (1) Meeke, Kris (1) Moutinho, Joaquim (1) Mouton, Michele (1) Munari, Sandro (1) Neuville, Thierry (1) Ostberg, Mads (1) Pinto, Raffaele (1) Rohrl, Walter (1) Salonen, Timo (1) Tanak, Ott (1) Therier, Jean-Luc (1)
Manufacturer wins
Toyota (7) Fiat (6) Lancia (6) Citroen (5) Ford (5) Audi (3) Subaru (3) Volkswagen (3) Mitsubishi (2) Hyundai (1) Peugeot (1) Renault (1) Renault-Alpine (1)