In the 2000’s, Rally Vinho Madeira maintained the status from previous years and never failed to show up strongly in the motor-racing international stage. In the symbolic year of 2000, once a setting for various literary fiction works, Piero Liatti still managed to win with a Subaru, but, in the following years, Peugeot cleared all competition by winning every edition up to 2004. Mainly with its 206 ERC model which has always proved to be an almost perfect car for our roads.

In 2001, Adruzilo Lopes achieved a long desired goal, both for himself and for the Peugeot Portugal team, and, the following year, Andrea Aghini obtained success in that which was, up to now, his last race in Madeira. The Portuguese team, guided by Carlos Barros, won again in 2003 with Miguel Campos. In all these years the podium places were monopolized by this model, one that is strongly longed for by fans.

After the ban on the WRC model from all championships but for the World Championship, Vítor Sá, owning a Peugeot 306, had the ideal machine to rise Madeiran pilots back to the top of the Rally Vinho Madeira’s general poll. And it was exactly that what the pilot managed to do in 2004, twenty nine years after the last insular racer achieved it. This was an unavoidable landmark point in the career of a racer who dominated an entire decade of local motor-racing, but also an expression of the vigorous élan that the sport had in the archipelago.

In 2005, Renato Travaglia, a pilot who also holds a large fan base on the island, was the only one to manage a win at the wheel of a S 1600 (Renault Clio), in a year in which Giandomenico Basso should have won. The Italian redeemed himself in the two following years and, also, in 2009, always at the wheel of his Fiat Punto S 2000. For a little margin he did not win in 2008, a year in which Nicolas Vouilloz, who was to become the IRC Champion, opened the celebratory champagne bottle.