Round 13 - Portugal (Estoril)

ACE SERIES

1995/96 Pole Position:	1:07.333 (Rene Smit)
1995/96 Race Time:	1h27m44.527 (Hans Gunnar Hansen)
Race Distance:	71 laps

Qualifying

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1:07.244		20
2.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1:07.458	+0.214	16
3.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1:07.467	+0.223	14
4.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:07.470	+0.226	12
5.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1:07.509	+0.265	10
6.	Juha Hyvonen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:07.646	+0.402	8
7.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1:07.712	+0.468	6
8.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1:07.807	+0.563	5
9.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1:07.810	+0.566	4
10.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1:07.900	+0.656	3
11.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	1:07.903	+0.659	2
12.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1:07.957	+0.713	1
13.	Derek Waters	Maverick	1:09.031	+1.787
14.	Andrew Clark	Ant Hill Mob Racing	1:09.141	+1.897
15.	Paul Branney	Team Ecosse	1:09.255	+2.011

Although it was Oliver Roberts who was in front after the start this time, Reinhold Schatzer set the pace of the first part of the GP again. He was the leader after the second lap and held this position until lap 11, but then he lost his front wing and the necessary pit stop throw him back to last position.

Oliver was in the lead now, with Hans Gunnar Hansen close behind. The gap to Markus Kruggel, Michal Janak and Enigma's Martin Devine wasn't large either, but Martin fell back after he had an accident in lap 28. Until the second stop of both in lap 38, Hans Gunnar kept the gap to Oliver at around 10 seconds and after the stops he came closer to Oliver. In lap 50 the gap was only 3.7 seconds but Hans Gunnar then lost over ten seconds till lap 57 where their last stops took place.

One lap earlier began a phase for Schatzer that he self called 'disastrous': Reinhold, who was back in 5th place after his early accident, suffered from a damaged rear wing and had to go to the pits to replace it. In lap 65 it was the front wing that broke in an incident and one lap later he smashed the new wing that he got from his crew and had to make a stop again. All this caused him to end his race with 6 stops and one lap down.

Oliver's lead over Hansen stayed stable until the end and third place driver Michal Janak kept his distance to his team mate at 50 seconds, too.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1h26m54.830		175
2.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1h27m11.473	+0m16.643	170
3.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1h27m41.354	+0m46.524	165
4.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1h28m08.613	+1m13.783	160
5.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1h28m11.573	+1m16.743	155
6.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1h28m21.326	+1m26.496	151
7.	Juha Hyvonen	FORT-Jiuqi	1h29m18.197	+2m23.367	147
8.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1h29m47.538	+2m52.708	143
9.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	-1 lap		139
10.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	61 laps		135
11.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	56 laps		132
12.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	51 laps		129
13.	Andrew Clark	Ant Hill Mob Racing	31 laps		126
14.	Derek Waters	Maverick	14 laps		123
15.	Paul Branney	Team Ecosse	0 laps		120

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	1:09.136	62	61/71	3	0:18.110	92			57	14
2.	10	H.G.Hansen	1:09.215	64	0/71	3	0:20.661	92			38	33
3.	2	M.Janak	1:09.674	71	0/71	3	0:22.648	92			71
4.	7	M.Kruggel	1:10.051	62	0/71	3	0:22.935	92			57	14
5.	8	A.Bruns	1:09.844	66	0/71	3	0:23.446	92			71
6.	5	A.Strang	1:09.993	62	0/71	3	0:21.816	92			71
7.	9	J.Hyvonen	1:11.035	66	0/71	2	0:23.483	91			71
8.	29	N.Maltez	1:10.212	62	0/71	4	0:34.352	92			41	30
9.	37	R.Schatzer	1:09.460	69	10/70	6	0:33.774	92			57	14
10.	15	I.G.Cuadrado	1:10.607	61	0/61	3	0:32.629	91			59	2
11.	39	M.Devine	1:10.814	56	0/56	3	0:27.972	92			47	9
12.	33	S.Diener	1:11.674	47	0/51	3	0:20.635	93				51
13.	4	A.Clark	1:14.751	30	0/31	1	0:31.247	92			31
14.	30	D.Waters	1:14.961	12	0/14	0		93			14

Fastest Lap: 1:09.136 Oliver Roberts (Digitech) LR
(Old Lap Record: 1:09.324 by H.G.Hansen 95/96)

What the top 3 said about the race

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "I decided on a CCCD strategy, which was a bit of a gamble, but I think it paid off. I knew right from the first lap that this would be a good race - the car felt very comfortable even then. Traffic wasn't too bad, as it was relatively fast. The Williams cars were particularly tricky to pass. Luckily, after my last pitstop I had about 7 clear laps in which I could really push the Ds to the limit. I was a bit surprised when I realized how quick my time was compared to last season. So, I think I can safely say this is a very good result!"

Hans Gunnar Hansen (FORT-Jiqui): "Ahh. At last my favourite track. Tried almost the same pitstop strategy as last year with three pitstops, but this time I used C's twice and D's twice (D's three times last year).

Even if I did this the tires wore out very quickly so I didn't have any grip at all at the end of each tyre-set. Did drive even faster than last year so I hope I will beat Oliver in this race."

Michal Janak (Digitech): "I started from pole position on C's. I made good start and in opening laps I made some FL. One of difficult things was overtaking, I must overtake all cars thru whole race (only two cars went out of race after I crossed the finish line)."

Last modified: Monday 14 July 1997 - 18:02