Season 2009 – Paludo’s second championship and Posses in the Light division
The opening stage was parte of the WTCC weekend for the first time. As in 2008, the fight for the title came as a duel between Miguel Paludo and Constantino Júnior. In the light division, André Posses lifted the Champion’s Cup.
Starting under the menace of the financial crisis from the final months of 2008, the 2009 season came to be one of the best ever for motorsport activities. Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Brasil was no exception. The opening stage that happened in march already had good omens: it happened in Curitiba for the first time and as support event for the FIA WTCC.
The number of participants in this stage was slightly less than average bat in the next stage it was completely full. The amount of interest in the series was such that a new division was created: Light, with the “996” porsches from 2005 to 2007. The financial crisis ghost was definitely gone.
As in 2008, the battle for the title came in the form of a duel between Miguel Paludo and Constantino Júnior. Season began with four consecutive victories from Constantino but Paludo returned by winning the following four races. In the ninth stage in Rio de Janeiro, both collided while fighting for victory and left the path wide open for Marcel Visconde to win for the first time. Because of the crash, both drivers started in the back of the grid on the tenth race that happened that same day. And what a show they made, finishing first and second with Paludo, already the overall leader, in first place. From there to the end of the season, the 2008 champion would come to win five more races. The victory line was interrupted only by a gearbox break in the Formula 1 stage. In that race, victory fell to Leo Burti.
Created as a cheaper alternative, the Light division also attracted some drivers that chose Porsche as their starting point in motorsport. The first race took place in Rio de Janeiro (fifth event of the season). Since the beginning, Light showed itself to be very competitive and attractive, with races as fierce as the more powerful division.
On the track, André Posses and Elias Azevedo used their experience to finish on top of the leaderboard. Posses won all four races and shared the top positions with Elias in all qualifying (each started two times as pole-position). The most dramatic battle happened for the third place: Edu Guedes finished there with merely one point advantage over Eduardo Azevedo, seven over Amilcar Collares and eight over Tommy Soubihe, forming the top 6 of the season.
