Round 11 - Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps)

ACE SERIES

1995/96 Pole Position:	1:37.909 (Rene Smit)
1995/96 Race Time:	1h19m39.142 (Rene Smit)
Race Distance:	44 laps

Qualifying

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1:38.489		20
2.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1:39.113	+0.624	16
3.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1:39.454	+0.965	14
4.	Martin Devine	Enigma	1:39.468	+0.979	12
5.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1:39.519	+1.030	10
6.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1:39.561	+1.072	8
7.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	1:39.631	+1.142	6
8.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1:39.758	+1.269	5
9.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:39.832	+1.343	4
10.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1:39.842	+1.353	3
11.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1:40.321	+1.832	2
12.	Juha Hyvonen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:40.365	+1.876	1
13.	Andrew Clark	Ant Hill Mob Racing	1:41.382	+2.893
14.	Derek Waters	Maverick	1:41.970	+3.481
15.	Paul Branney	Team Ecosse	1:41.998	+3.509

This year's GP at Spa saw Reinhold Schatzer taking the lead right after the start. He was stillin the lead after the first lap, but this was the only time when he actually crossed the line as he retired at the end of lap 2.

It was Markus Kruggel who went into 1st position and some fast laps let him stay there for a while, although Ignacio Garcia Cuadrado and Oliver Roberts stayed very close behind. Unfortunately, Ignacio retired after 9 laps while Oliver took the lead in the same lap.

In lap 10 Alan Strang was the first to visit the pits for a regular stop after Derek Waters already had to come in for a new front wing in lap 4. After the first series of stops was done, the three at the front were Oliver, Hans Gunnar Hansen and Markus, but Hans Gunnar got into trouble in lap 14 and lost two positions. Oliver was able to increase his lead to 10 seconds while his team mate Michal Janak decreased the gap to Markus on 2nd.

Steffen Diener and Alan Strang followed on the next places, but after Alan retired in lap 17, Steffen had to continue the chase on his own. Behind him was a group with Axel Bruns, Hans Gunnar and Nuno Maltez, but this group again it was decimated as Maltez had to visit the pits after a crash. After the 2nd stop around lap 22, Michal began to decrease the gap to his team mate, while Markus wasn't able to follow the pace and fell back on third. Janak was only 12 seconds behind in lap 31, but after the last stops around lap 33, Oliver widened the gap to his team mate again and drove to a clear victory.

Meanwhile Markus' advantage on Steffen Diener began to melt away. From the 16 seconds gap in lap 37 only 4 seconds were left when both crossed the line after lap 44.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1h19m01.191		175
2.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1h19m30.742	+0m29.551	170
3.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1h20m07.844	+1m06.653	165
4.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1h20m12.394	+1m11.203	160
5.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1h20m28.200	+1m27.009	155
6.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1h20m48.012	+1m46.821	151
7.	Andrew Clark	Ant Hill Mob Racing	1h23m03.638	+4m02.547	147
8.	Juha Hyvonen	FORT-Jiuqi	1h23m06.378	+4m05.187	143
9.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	25 laps		139
10.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	16 laps		135
11.	Paul Branney	team Ecosse	10 laps		132
12.	Ignacio García	IGC Racing Team	9 laps		129
13.	Derek Waters	Maverick	4 laps		126
14.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1 lap		123
15.	Martin Devine	Enigma	1 lap		123

Race Statistics

Pos	Car	Driver	Fastest Lap		LL/TL	Pitstops		Avg. Grip	Tyre Usage
Pos	Car	Driver	Time	Lap #	LL/TL	Stops	Avg. Length	Avg. Grip	A	B	C	D	Q	W
1.	1	O.Roberts	1:41.518	40	33/44	3	0:16.250	91			44
2.	2	M.Janak	1:41.948	38	2/44	3	0:19.195	91			44
3.	7	M.Kruggel	1:43.362	40	7/44	3	0:17.355	91			44
4.	33	S.Diener	1:41.979	40	0/44	3	0:15.805	91			36	8
5.	10	H.G.Hansen	1:43.519	44	1/44	2	0:18.023	89		16	28
6.	8	A.Bruns	1:43.592	42	0/44	3	0:22.661	91			44
7.	9	J.Hyvonen	1:45.271	36	0/44	2	0:33.851	89			44
8.	29	N.Maltez	1:46.471	24	0/25	3	0:43.026	91			25
9.	5	A.Strang	1:49.657	8	0/16	1	0:21.958	90		6	10
10.	15	I.G.Cuadrado	1:48.966	7	1/ 9	0		91			9
11.	30	D.Waters	1:54.689	2	0/ 4	1		92			4
12.	39	M.Devine	1:55.470	1	0/ 1	0		91			1
13.	37	R.Schatzer	1:54.407	1	1/ 1	0		91			1

Fastest Lap: 1:41.518 Oliver Roberts (Digitech) LR
(Old Lap Record: 1:41.658 by G.Hawkins 95/96)

Some of the driver statements

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "I ran a 3 stop (CCCC) race, again with a similar setup to last season. The race went pretty smoothly with no major mistakes. (...) Anyway, another excellent race - again I have improved my time from last season."

Michal Janak (Digitech): "I started from 2nd place on C's tyres. I used diferent strategy than last year. There wasn't big problems at all, but on some places was difficult to overtake CC's. In last lap I was about to end in crash in "BUS STOP" (...)"

Markus Kruggel (Wild 13): "I was worrying about getting through Eau Rouge quick enough, (i.e. flat out) as early as possible during the race. So I spent some time on the setup of the car and it looks like that payed off for me. Many cars to overtake as only a few CCs decided to end the race prematurely."

Last modified: Monday 14 July 1997 - 17:23