Rui Pinto, 56 years old, debuted in Rally Vinho Madeira in 1983 and, in 2019, he will be racing for the twenty-seventh time at the Club Sports of Madeira organized competition. The Madeiran champion in Production, in 1995 and 2006, and in VSH in 2017, has already run in this race at the wheel of vehicles as different as, for example, a Nissan Sunny 1.2, an Opel Kadett GT/E, an Opel Manta 2.0, an Opel Corsa GSi, a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth, a Ford Escort RS Cosworth, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V, a Ford Escort Maxi, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII, a Subaru Impreza STi, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X or the current Ford Focus WRC.

The driver is “satisfied with this season’s balance. The Ford Focus has revealed to be a good bet  since, so far, in three years of competing, we have only given up once due to a mechanical problem. In Faial we rode a Skoda Fabia R5, since we wanted to prepare the Ford, the best way we could, for this edition of the Rally Vinho Madeira, in which we have bet for a good performance and a good result”.