Persberichten - Patrício Cruz Retires

Patrício Cruz Retires

After 17 seasons of great fights, victories and naturally defeats as well, Patrício Cruz ends his career on a high with the WTCS title.

Here’s a summary of Patrício’s career:

Official Series

S16-S23 - There were no titles during the growing stage of Patrício’s career but there were a few podiums first in F3 Mediterranean and Asia, then in F2 Asia and Africa.

S24 - First title in Indy Jr International, it was a relatively straightforward win. Adam Haspra ended up finishing in 2nd place, 11 points away but it was a controlled gap after a very strong run during the mid part of the season gave Patrício a big lead.

S25 - After the first title in Indy Jr International, Patrício had his first attempt on the DTWS but it was too early to have any chance of fighting for the title, in the end Patrício raced against Bruno Correa for the best of the rest position behind Zakrajsek and Doucet who were much better skilled at the time. Bruno finished in 3rd ahead of Patrício in 4th.

S26 - The first battle in a world series, Patrício Cruz decided to challenge Franciszek Bum who held the title. It was a great season but in the end Bum had the advantage thanks to a flawless 20 points-scoring run. A highlight of this season is the Hungaroring track record which still belongs to Patrício.

S27 - First DTWS title against a veteran Jaroslav Kadeřábek Jr. A great 2nd half of the season gave Patrício the title by just 2 points.

S28 - Having won the DTWS title, Patrício decided to tackle the best rated series, the Indy Series. Once again it was a very close battle this time against Sergey Sidorskiy, Patrício won by a single point.

S29 - After the Indy title the next challenge was to win the DTWS again but this time with Audi. But then Patrício had to face Thor Viking and after 20 races, Patrício was one point short and had to settle for 2nd place. Patrício conquered 7 pole positions but only 4 race wins, there was clearly room to improve.

S30 - This season was part 2 of the previous one, once again Thor Viking was the great rival. After winning just 1 race in the first half of the season while Thor won 5 of those races, Patrício went on to win 5 of the last 10 races, finished in 2nd on another 4 races and 3rd in another one, an incredible 2nd half of the season which gave Patrício his 2nd DTWS title!

S31 - Patrício’s first season in F1. It wasn’t a great season, not only did it coincide with a difficult period for WAR but more than that, the results achieved by Patrício were inferior to what the car allowed. The main reason was F1’s qualifying system, we had only a few races where we could shine but Patrício didn’t get clean qualifying sessions on most of those decisive races. Still the result was enough for WAR to achieve its goal that season.

S32 - WAR tanked this season so we just wanted to finish races, in the end Patrício was the best of the tanking drivers thanks to a good result in Monte Carlo.

S33 - And our final season, one of the objectives was gathering data for future series in TCS cars but the title was also an objective. Even if the final gap was a relatively large 49 points over Gustav Zatáčka, the series was closer than that, it was only during the final 6 races that Patrício was able to make a gap.

Great Rivals

Tiago B. Tejo - Tiago was Patrício’s greatest rival during the early stages of his career. Both drivers had their wins but Tejo was more often the winner until both turned 25 years old and Patrício’s initial focus on personal skills started making a difference. Tiago’s manager also gradually lost interest in MRC which also helped.

Roger Relâmpago - As one battle ended, another started, Roger was created just a few weeks after Patrício but only really started troubling Patrício around age 23, from then on these drivers battled each other on the various competitions they raced on together, that would last until the end of their careers!

Bruno Correa - Similar story to Roger but Bruno was less regular in the WAR competitions, so the truly great battles happened in the Luso-Brasileiro where Patrício did win more times but truth be told, when Bruno won, he totally dominated.

António Monteiro - António was perhaps the hardest rival of all, Patrício did beat him on occasion, precisely the WAR-FC aged 28 and then a season later the Luso-Brasileiro but in both occasions António bounced back and re-took the titles. Testament to his manager’s skills, this was one of the drivers that was only regularly beaten once Patrício’s base skills overtook António’s when they turned 31 and 33 respectively.

Achievements

Best Rated Portuguese driver during 3.5 seasons.
3rd World Best Rated Driver at one point.

Official Series
1x Indy Series Title
2x DTWS Titles, one with BMW and another with Audi.
1x Indy Jr International Title

Podiums in Official Series
2nd place in the DTWS (lost to Thor Viking)
2nd place in F2 World (lost to Franciszek Bum)
2nd place in F2 Africa (at age 25)
2nd place in F3 Asia (at age 21)
2nd place in F3 Mediterranean (at age 20)
3rd place in F2 Asia (at age 24)

F1 Career
15th place in S31, best result 5th place in Sakhir.
25th place in S32, best result 19th place in Monte Carlo.

Nations Cup
2x 3rd place in Senior Class (S31 and S32)
11th place Overall (S31)
4th place in Under-21 Class (S19)
5x Overall Top 20 Finishes

Trophy of Champions
4th place in S29
4x Top 10 Finishes in 6 Participations

Other Series
4 WAR-FC Titles
3 WAR-SC Titles
3 Luso-Brasileiro Series Titles
3 Portuguese F3 (Private Series) Titles
2 WAR-FC Under-21 Titles
15 Custom Series Titles
6 Private Series Titles

Future

That’s it for Patrício Cruz’s career, he will be succeeded by Maurício Cruz. Our goal with Maurício will be to construct an even better driver in skills and then hopefully better results will come as well, but above and all, to have great battles against other great drivers!