Supercars Endurance Valencia 2025: Nerea Marti and De Los Milagros, victory of lineage

In the case of the Supercars Endurance, it arrived in Cheste for the fourth round of the season, scoring for both the Iberian Supercars and Supercars Spain. And it did so with a full grid: no less than 45 cars on track for the two 50-minute races to be held on Sunday.

The GT4s, with models like the Mercedes AMG GT4, McLaren Artura or 570S GT4, Aston Martin Vantage GT4, numerous Porsches, Toyota Supra, BMW, but also Ligier or Ginetta, provided a varied range of models on the track. In GT4Pro, leaders Roberto Faria and Mathieu Martins arrived with their Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 with a 3-point lead over Francisco Mora and Francisco Abreu and their Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 and 4 over César Machado, also with a Supra.

But alongside the modern GTs, classic cars were also set to compete on track. On one side, the Historic Endurance category, with models like the Ford GT40 or Alfa Romeo GTA, Ford Mustang or Porsche 911. They were joined by two categories of touring cars, one from the seventies and another specific to the eighties.

And stepping away from the concept of GTs and touring cars, but adding a nice touch of color, was the Single Seaters Series, a concept that brought together promotional single-seaters like the Tatuus, Mygale or Van Diemmen, bringing back to the track those formulas that not long ago served as a stepping stone to Formula 1. Particularly striking were a Merlyn from the sixties and a Chevron from the seventies.

With this, and while the main dish was the Supercar Endurance, the atmosphere that floated -sonically and olfactorily- in Ricardo Tormo was of races from the past, with a total of ten races during the weekend, eight of which took us back in a great concept of conjunction by the organizers, Race Ready.

Saturday

After a Friday dedicated to free practice, Saturday opened with a final practice for the Supercars, but the day focused on the qualifying sessions of the different categories. A very hot day, but with a persistent layer of clouds.

The GTs of the Supercar Endurance held their two qualifying sessions for each category starting at 3 PM. In GT4, the first qualifying saw Francisco Mora, with the Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2, flying to pole position, beating Roberto Faria by just 0.077s with the Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 from Racar Motorsport, in a duel between two declared title contenders. Meanwhile, Nerea Marti placed her BMW in tenth position.

In the second round, it would be debutant Karel Staut, at just 14 years old, who set the fastest lap with the Toyota Supra, surpassing his GT4 Pro-Bronze rival, Filip Vava, with the Mercedes-AMG by four tenths. The leaders of the championship were third thanks to Martins, while their pursuers would come out sixth with Abreu's time. José Manuel de los Milagros, Nerea Marti's teammate, qualified thirteenth. In GTC, the poles went to Henrique Oliveira in a BMW M4 and Marcus Fothergill in a Porsche 911 Cup.

In Historic Endurance, with a strong grid of thirty cars, the front row was filled by the Ford GT40s –both replicas, but equally wonderful-, the pair Paulo Lima-Jordi Puig on pole with 1'1 seconds over Olivier Muytjens-Brice Pineau. At 5 PM, they would close the day with their first race, in which both finished in the same positions, despite Muytjens and Pineau having to recover after a bad start.

Among the many cars to highlight in this category, the beautiful, low, and small Lotus 23B of Xavier Rascagneres and Jérôme Peyrat caught attention, who qualified fourteenth and finished in eighteenth position. Also, Timothy Mahapatra's Jaguar E-Type Lightweight made a striking note, finishing thirteenth in the race.

As for the Single Seaters, the pole and victory went to Fernando Mayer Gaspar in his Tatuus FR2000, with the superiority of these models evident as they filled the podium with Duarte Pires and André Pardal. But the attention was on the Merlyn Mk 17 of Alberto and Tomaz Velez-Grillo, who finished eighth and last. The small 1969 Formula Ford painted in the livery of the BRM F1 of the time was a delight.

Likewise, the Chevron B47 of Carlos Antunes Tavares –yes, the one who until 2024 was CEO of the Stellantis Group- was a piece worthy of admiration, which the businessman drove with great skill and good pace to finish fourth in the race.

Sunday

The sun was fully present on Sunday for the 5,000 spectators who came to enjoy the races of all categories, which started at 9 in the morning with the classic touring cars.

The first highlight was at 11:05 for the first race of the Supercars. It was impressive to see the 45 cars on the starting grid, and then in the race occupying the entire finish straight. Francisco Mora started with a bang and led the race in the first stint, but numerous safety cars began to occur, which meant that those who overtook the strategy benefited in part.

Thus, after the stops, the lead was held by Alexandre Areia and Nuno Afonso with their Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2, who managed the race from then on to achieve a great victory ahead of the pair formed by Andrius Zemaitis and Karel Staut in another Supra, with Bruno Pires and Mark Kastelic completing the podium with their Mercedes-AMG GT4.

Meanwhile, the pair formed by Nerea Marti and José Manuel de los Milagros finished in eleventh position, in a race very broken in terms of pace due to the neutralization periods.

On the other hand, the second race of the Historic Endurance suffered from numerous dropouts in the grid, such as the winner on Saturday. In reality, Carlos Brizido and Miguel Lobo's Porsche 911 3.0 RS dominated much of the race. But there were also several safety cars,

This was taken advantage of by Olivier Muytjens and Brice Pineau's Ford GT40 to climb the standings after a bad start, to the point of catching the Porsche, overtaking it on track, and achieving victory. The beautiful Lotus Elan of Jeremy Clark completed the final podium.

As for the Single Seaters, the victory this time went to Duarte Pires followed by André Parda, with Fernando Mayer Gaspar in third place, all with Tatuus FR2000. Carlos Tavares was again a good fourth, while the Merlyn had to retire due to mechanical issues.

Finally, at 16:05, the second race of the Supercars was ready to start, with strong heat, but also much support for the Valencian Nerea Marti, who started thirteenth, with De Los Milagros taking the start. At the beginning, Karel Staut maintained the first position, and would do so for many laps.

Meanwhile, De Los Milagros climbed to eighth position, while a first incident caused the first –of several- safety cars. After the race was restarted, Staut remained the leader, but the Spanish BMW driver continued to climb to fifth place.

More safety cars caused the race to be very strategic. And when Nerea Marti got into the BMW, the battle was with César Machado and Adrián Ferrer. The Valencian took the lead and held firm in her position until the finish, to the jubilation of the public and her team. Mathieu Martins and Roberto Faria completed the podium.

After the race, Nerea Marti was understandably ecstatic: "I am very happy with the weekend. It was a super hard-fought race, we started in thirteenth position, José made up many positions at the beginning, we executed an impeccable strategy and I finished it off. I felt the support of everyone who came to see me today, it’s incredible to win at home."

This victory fuels the title options in the Spanish side of the championship for the pair. The championship now heads to the Jerez circuit for the penultimate round of the season.

Fotos: Motor.es / José Miguel Vinuesa