Team Carrera Classic started racing activities in 2018. From the beginning the plan was to drive in Europe with other 1965 911 Porsches. Risto Virtanen joined the team as a driving coach and later in 2020 as a race driver. The first two seasons the car owner Jussi Itavuori was racing in Finland with one visit to Sweden. Then 2020 we were planning to go to Europe, but Covid came and mixed up all the plans. Our first race in Europe was Spa Six Hours in 2021, but the first “full” European season has been 2022.
Our main objective has been to drive Peter Auto 2.0 Liter Cup races. We started in SPA in mid May and continued to Dijon in early June. During these two races we learned that the best cars were seriously fast. We came back to Finland and did a lot of changes to the engine, fuel system, brakes and the chassi setup. Our third 2.0 Liter Cup race was at Paul Ricard in southern France in late August. Now the car was much better and Risto started to be closer to the top cars in qualifying speeds. He even shared the fastest recorded top speed in the actual race. The final ranking of Jussi and Risto in 2.0 liter Cup series in 2022 was shared 23. position on the list of over 90 drivers.
We drove also four HRF races in Finland in the new F/B class which is for historic racing cars from 1600 cc to 2500 cc build before 1966.
Our final race in 2022 was again SPA Six Hours. In this long race our third driver was Markus Palttala as he did in 2021. The race result was good: 34/90 overall and 7/20 in our class. The main learning from Spa was that in the test day before the race our speed had improved a lot from the spring, and we started to be much closer to the speed of top British Porsches.
During the season our pit team: Jan Svenns and Markus Nieminen have done a great work. The car was much more reliable than in 2021, but still we had one gearbox (LSD) damage and one broken clutch. The engine and gearbox were removed three times during the season at the pit, which is always a challenge for the team.
2022 was a great season and great experience. We learned a lot and our speed was improving. We had a lot of fun and we got a lot of new friends, like the MG B team Herreman (SPA Six Hours). Thank you for everybody.
We would like to hear from you! We are always happy to discuss our cars with our fellow car enthusiasts. We can also help you to find the right car and to prepare it for the condition you would like it to be.
