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Brazilian V8 Stock Cars’ debut in Minas Gerais to increase title chase unpredictability

The brand-new Circuito dos Cristais is ready for the penultimate round of Brazil’s most prestigious racing series in a track the drivers still have not driven into, and with an unexpected guest: it may rain during the weekend.

Rubens Barrichello

Rubens Barrichello

Átila Abreu
Felipe Fraga, Marcos Gomes
Rubens Barrichello
Felipe Fraga
Marcos Gomes, Felipe Fraga
Max Wilson
Felipe Fraga

Brazilian V8 Stock Cars heads to its last double-header of the season this weekend at Curvelo, Minas Gerais. The biggest racing series in the country puts the 90-thousand-inhabitant city located in the centre of Minais Gerais state into the Brazilian motorsport map. The reason for this debut is the brand-new Circuito dos Cristais, a 4-million square meters complex built in two years by TecRacing, a private group, and which includes a housing complex and a racing club.

The 4,420-metre circuit is larger than Interlagos (4,309) and features a selection of ups, downs, fast and slow corners, plus a 800-metre main straight. There are 20 garages for the teams and scrutineering, each one with 120 square meters - bigger than in the majority of the racetracks in Brazil. "Curvelo is proud of hosting an event like Stock Cars and we are opened to work on everything to make sure it is going to be a great success", declared Maurílio Guimarães, Curvelo’s city mayor.

Tricky, unknown. Maybe wet. It has been raining in Curvelo since last Tuesday, what is normal at this period of the year in Brazil - hot and humid summer. Weather prediction points to a good chance of raining during the races as it happened the previous round in Goiânia. That was the first time Stock Cars races in the wet since April 2015 in the street circuit of Ribeirão Preto.

Rubens Barrichello closed the gap on Felipe Fraga from 44 to 29 points. The final race in Interlagos (December 11th) will award double the points, so the duel is one of the must-see of the eleventh round of the season.

As a new circuit for all the drivers, the organization added an extra practice session so they can have more time to learn the track, which activities being this Friday morning. Qualifying takes place on Saturday. On Sunday, Race 1 begins at 1 pm (local time), and Race 2 at 2:10 pm.

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Edition

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