Round 15 - Japan (Suzuka)

ACE SERIES

Qualifying
Race Report
Finishing Order
Race Statistics
Action Replays
Download Mixed Logfile
Semi-Pro Results

1996/97 Pole Position:	1:26.100 (Steffen Diener)
1996/97 Race Time:	1h22m22.153 (Michal Janak)
Race Distance:	53 laps

Qualifying

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1:25.357		20
2.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1:25.811	+0.454	16
3.	Jan Svehlik	Bolgani	1:25.909	+0.552	14
4.	Marco Saupe	M&T-SPEED	1:26.006	+0.649	12
5.	Rafal Ziarnik	Yapamotox	1:26.152	+0.795	10
6.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1:26.187	+0.830	8
7.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1:26.483	+1.126	6
8.	Mirko Patzenbein	Enigma Racing	1:26.517	+1.160	5
9.	Reinhold Schatzer	Rocketship	1:26.673	+1.316	4
10.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1:26.793	+1.436	3
11.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1:26.804	+1.447	2
12.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1:26.856	+1.499	1
13.	Ignacio Garcia	Curb Crawlers	1:26.903	+1.546
14.	Anthony Long	P76 Racing	1:27.413	+2.056
15.	Scott Dryden	Team Ecosse	1:27.794	+2.437
16.	Nuno Maltez	Rocketship	1:27.797	+2.440
17.	Hendrik Mehl	Crash Heads	1:27.851	+2.494
18.	Fernando Alvarez	Project AR	1:28.134	+2.777
19.	Argyris Maistralis	Crash Heads	1:28.742	+3.385
20.	Jonathan Stead	Slipstream	1:29.308	+3.951
21.	Mark McCubbin	Slipstream	1:29.575	+4.218

In a race where most things settled before half-time, the battle on the front was one of the closests this season. Enigma's Mirko Patzenbein and Bolgani's Jan Svehlik were leading for the first laps, but Michal Janak took over in lap 14. He was able to build up a gap on team-mate Oliver and Mirko, but not on Jan who was chasing him throughout the whole race. Oliver secured his 3rd place quite early when mirko dropped back and evetually found himself battling with Steffen Diener for 4th, a duel that the Roadrunner driver decided narrowly to his advantage.

At the front, Jan was able to keep the pace set by Michal - in fact, he was actually faster if we can trust the timing data: Jan lost an average of 10 seconds on each of his three pit stops and the laps before and after. However, it did not impress him very much that he soon lost the lead that he gained in lap 39, when both made their last pit stops four laps later. He stuck closely to the Digitech in front even when Michal drove a fastest lap of 1:27, and Jan eventually took the lead when Michal made one of his very rare errors in the very last lap of the race.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Jan Svehlik	Bolgani	1h22m09.281		180
2.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1h22m13.959	+0:04.678	170
3.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1h22m34.359	+0:25.078	165
4.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1h23m09.617	+1:00.336	160
5.	Mirko Patzenbein	Enigma Racing	1h23m10.993	+1:01.712	155
6.	Marco Saupe	M&T SPEED	1h23m17.752	+1:08.471	151
7.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1h23m56.270	+1:46.989	147
8.	Nuno Maltez	Rocketship	1h24m21.273	+2:11.992	143
9.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1h24m32.378	+2:23.097	139
10.	Reinhold Schatzer	Rocketship	1h25m06.698	+2:57.417	135
11.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1h25m38.316	+3:29.035	132
12.	Hendrik Mehl	Crash Heads	1h26m05.321	+3:56.040	129
13.	Fernando Alvarez	Project AR	1h26m09.548	+4:00.267	126
14.	Anthony Long	P76 Racing	1h27m19.194	+5:09.913	123
15.	Ignacio Garcia	Curb Crawlers	46 laps	(86.8%)	104
16.	Scott Dryden	Team Ecosse	41 laps	(77.4%)	90
17.	Mark McCubbin	Slipstream	37 laps	(69.8%)	79
18.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	22 laps	(41.5%)	46
19.	Rafal Ziarnik	Yapamotox	17 laps	(32.1%)	34
20.	Argyris Maistralis	Crash Heads	12 laps	(22.6%)	23
21.	Jonathan Stead	Slipstream	2 laps	(3.8%)	3

New Lap Record: 1:27.642 - Marco Saupe (M&T SPEED)

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	B	C	D
1.	21	J.Svehlik	1:28.120	49	14/53	3	0:22.225	92		29	24
2.	2	M.Janak	1:27.888	47	33/53	3	0:12.925	92		43	10
3.	1	O.Roberts	1:29.124	53	0/53	3	0:13.996	92		42	11
4.	36	S.Diener	1:28.541	52	0/53	3	0:15.859	92		45	8
5.	40	M.Patzenbein	1:28.541	48	6/53	3	0:23.643	92		40	13
6.	45	M.Saupe	1:27.642	47	0/53	3	0:14.430	92		30	23
7.	8	A.Bruns	1:28.925	51	0/53	4	0:16.335	93		26	27
8.	13	N.Maltez	1:29.983	50	0/53	3	0:17.764	92		43	10
9.	7	M.Kruggel	1:29.457	49	0/53	4	0:18.366	93		26	27
10.	14	R.Schatzer	1:29.526	48	0/53	4	0:25.817	92		53
11.	39	M.Devine	1:29.790	51	0/53	2	0:23.207	90	23	30
12.	16	H.Mehl	1:31.972	51	0/53	3	0:32.111	92		28	25
13.	47	F.Alvarez	1:30.576	53	0/53	4	0:28.855	93		40	13
14.	20	A.Long	1:31.925	42	0/53	4	0:37.824	92		13	40
15.	24	I.G.Cuadrado	1:29.526	46	0/46	4	0:30.913	93		37	9
16.	6	S.Dryden	1:31.727	40	0/41	3	0:28.670	92		41
17.	38	M.McCubbin	1:32.705	37	0/37	2	0:36.962	91			37
18.	5	A.Strang	1:33.495	21	0/22	1	0:26.128	92		22
19.	31	R.Ziarnik	1:35.598	9	0/17	0		91		17
20.	15	A.Maistralis	1:38.624	5	0/12	0		92			12
21.	37	J.Stead	1:43.164	2	0/ 2	0		95			2

Action Replays

Markus Kruggel: "I like to recommend Fernando Alvarez' replay for an example of brilliant overtaking (well, in my point of view, anyway). That's how it should happen and I point that out because I saw some incidents in replays of the last couple of rounds where drivers used CCs as "bumpers". After all that's quite close to intentionally driving into a CC and as you all should know, that's against the rules. So, be calm, be patient and be precise :-)"

Fernando Alvarez (PROJECT AR):
"...what I send you is another showing me passing two cars in the long left turn after the first two turns. As you will see a pass with mathematical precision. Best viewed in Tarso Marques car."
Steffen Diener (Roadrunner):
"One lap before my last pitstop, there are yellow flags out, I slow down a little bit for a CC, see a green flag on the right and start to overtake. But suddenly I see more yellow flags and more trouble..."
Nuno Maltez (Rocketship):
"...although I never crashed hard enough to damage my car, there were some scary moments in the race, like on lap 24, in a not very wise overtake. Verstappen's car and mine touched, I lost control but managed to get back safely on track (see the replay)."

Download the replays (33K)

Last modified: Sunday 24 May 1998 - 19:04