Autódromo Internacional de Tarumã

Overview

Autódromo Internacional de Tarumã is a motor racing circuit in Viamão, on the eastern edge of Greater Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul. It is owned and run by the Automóvel Clube do Rio Grande do Sul, a non-profit club founded in 1953 to promote motorsport among its members, which makes it one of the few privately owned circuits in Brazil. The club describes Tarumã as the circuit with the highest average lap speed in the country. Its calendar combines regional championships, national truck racing, Friday-night drag events, an annual twelve-hour race and track days for ordinary road cars.

Technical Specifications and Track Features

The full circuit is 3,039 metres long and has nine corners, mixing very fast, medium and slow turns. Its best-known section is the Curva do Tala-Larga, a downhill esse that the club says demands real skill and nerve. Turn 1 is a fast corner at the end of the pit straight, with the circuit's entrance tunnel running beneath it, and Turn 9 leads back onto the straight at high speed. The run-off areas at Turn 1 and the Tala-Larga have been enlarged over the years, and the track was resurfaced in 1981, at the start of 2004 and again in 2012. A chicane at the fast Turn 3 was introduced for the 2014 national races and gives a 3,069 metre configuration with eleven turns. In 2025 a further variant between Turns 8 and 9 was built at the request of the national federation's engineers after a series of accidents there, while the original layout was kept. The fastest recorded race lap of the full circuit is 56.822 seconds, set by Rodrigo González in a Formula 3 car in 2012.

Facilities and Specialized Areas

The site includes a pit and paddock complex rebuilt with the 2012 investment, and a kart track that was the first part of the venue to open. Racha Tarumã, created in 1997 to take illegal street racing off public roads, brings thousands of people to the circuit on Friday nights for drag races over 201 metres, with no class rules beyond safety equipment and a driving licence. The circuit's own Track Day Tarumã lets drivers bring everyday cars onto the full circuit, split into classes with prizes for the fastest in each.

History

The club began planning its own circuit in the 1950s and in 1960 completed the purchase of a 50 hectare plot in the Vila Tarumã area, paid for through member contributions. Machines lent by the state roads department shaped the ground, and drivers were already testing on the dirt outline before the project was presented to the state governor in 1965. The kart track opened in 1967, and construction gathered pace after a fatal accident at the 1968 Twelve Hours of Porto Alegre led to a ban on street racing in the state. The circuit opened on 8 November 1970 in front of an estimated 50,000 people, with Jayme Silva winning the first race in an Alfa Fúria. The Twelve Hours of Tarumã moved to the new track in 1971, paused in 1976 during the oil crisis and returned in 1984, and it starts at midnight on Saturday and finishes at noon on Sunday. Over the decades Tarumã has hosted Stock Car Brasil, Formula 3 Sudamericana, Fórmula Truck, NASCAR Brasil and Copa Truck.