The 2012 Rally de Portugal was the fourth round of the

2012 World Rally Championship season The 2012 World Rally Championship was the 40th season of the FIA World Rally Championship. The season consisted of thirteen rallies, beginning with Monte Carlo Rally on 17 January, and ending on 11 November with Rally Catalunya. Sébastien ...

and was based in Faro,

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. It started with a street stage in Lisbon on 29 March and concluded on 1 April after twenty-two special stages, totalling 434 competitive kilometres.

Report

Before the rally

The rally was preceded by the "Fafe Rally Sprint", a single-stage exhibition event run over the famous

Fafe Fafe () is a municipality in the northern Portuguese district of Braga. The population in 2021 was 48,502, in an area of approximately (. The city itself had a population of 14,144 in 2001. The present mayor is Antero Barbosa, elected by the Social ...

stages in the country's north which was won by

Ford World Rally Team The Ford World Rally Team, also known as the ''Ford Motor Co. Team'' prior to 2005, is Ford Motor Company's full factory World Rally Championship team. In its current form, it has been a competitor since the 1997 season, when Ford Motor Compa ...

driver

Petter Solberg Petter Solberg (born 18 November 1974) is a Norwegian former professional rally and rallycross driver. Solberg debuted in the World Rally Championship in 1998 and was signed by the Ford factory team in 1999. The following year, Solberg started ...

. Solberg's team-mate,

Jari-Matti Latvala Jari-Matti Latvala (born 3 April 1985) is a Finnish rally driver who has competed in the World Rally Championship (WRC). His co-driver for most of his career was Miikka Anttila, who co-drove for Latvala between the 2003 Rallye Deutschland and 2019 ...

won the rally's qualifying stage on the Wednesday before the start of the rally. Latvala elected to run seventeenth on the road as a result; by contrast, Citroën Total World Rally Team drivers

Mikko Hirvonen Mikko Hirvonen (born 31 July 1980) is a Finnish former rally driver, and a current Rally-Raid driver, who drove in the World Rally Championship. He placed third in the drivers' championship and helped Ford to the manufacturers' title in both 2 ...

and

Sébastien Loeb Sébastien Loeb (; born 26 February 1974) is a French professional rallying, rally, auto racing, racing and rallycross driver. He is the most successful driver in the World Rally Championship (WRC), having won the world championship a record nin ...

elected to run first and second respectively.

Results

Event standings

: – The WRC Academy features only the first 13 stages of the rally.

Special stages

Notes: * —

won the rally, but was excluded when event scrutineers found that parts in his

Citroën DS3 WRC The Citroën DS3 WRC is the World Rally Car built for the Citroën World Rally Team by Citroën Racing for use from the 2011 World Rally Championship season. It is based upon the Citroën DS3 road car, and replaced the highly successful Citroën ...

did not match the parts listed by his team. Hirvonen's exclusion mean that

Adapta World Rally Team The Adapta WRT is a World Rally Championship team. Sometimes it is referred to as Adapta AS. It has previously competed with Subaru Impreza WRC of many evolutions, now they use Ford Fiesta RS WRC. Adapta WRT is signed to manufacturers champio ...

driver

Mads Østberg Mads Østberg (born 11 October 1987) is a Norwegian rally driver. His co-driver is Torstein Eriksen. Career Østberg competed in his first rally in 2004. His first World Rally Championship event was the 2006 Swedish Rally, in which he finishe ...

was declared the winner

Power Stage

The "Power stage" was a stage at the end of the rally.

Championship standings after the event

Drivers' championship

Notes: *¹ ² ³ refers to the classification of the drivers on the 'Power Stage', where bonus points are awarded 3–2–1 for the fastest three drivers on the stage.

Manufacturers' championship

Notes: *† — The

Mini WRC Team The Prodrive WRC Team, formerly known as the Mini WRC Team was the name given to the World Rally Championship (WRC) team run by Prodrive. Prodrive developed the car, the Mini John Cooper Works WRC, in cooperation with MINI. Mini in rallying M ...

lost its manufacturer status in February when parent company BMW withdrew works support from the team, demoting them to customer team status. The team kept the points it scored on

Rallye Monte Carlo The Monte Carlo Rally or Rallye Monte-Carlo (officially ''Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo'') is a rallying event organised each year by the Automobile Club de Monaco. The rally now takes place along the French Riviera in Monaco and southeast ...

although it was no longer classified as a manufacturer entrant. They were replaced by the WRC Team Mini Portugal as the official Mini works team. *‡ — Armindo Araújo World Rally Team and Palmeirinha Rally merged to form WRC Team Mini Portugal. The points they scored at the

were removed from the manufacturers' championship.

SWRC Drivers' championship

WRC Academy Drivers' Championship

Notes: * ¹ refers to the number of stages won, where a bonus point is awarded per stage win.

References

{{2012 World Rally Championship season

Rally de Portugal The Rally de Portugal (formerly: Rallye de Portugal) is a rally competition held in Portugal. First held in 1967, the seventh running of the race, the 7º TAP Rallye de Portugal was the third event in the inaugural FIA World Rally Cham ...

Rally de Portugal