Here are our recce highlights: 1) More asphalt than you might imagine...Portugal is a gravel rally, but many of the stages contain asphalt sections too. Most start on asphalt - to avoid the cars churning up the surface - before they dart off onto gravel. After that, stages often hop back onto tar for junctions or short linking sections between more gravel roads. The majority of the asphalt links are less than 200 metres long, but the longest is 1.5km - and that features a cobbled section too. The picture below shows the event's most famous stretch of asphalt on the approach to Sunday's Fafe hairpin (SS14/SS16).
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