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Round 15 - USA (Phoenix) |
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"The USA GP is my favourite. You must be 100% concentrated, when you don't want crash in wall. There are also good places for overtaking, so i don't losted much time with the CC's. I'am looking forward for the last race in Japan. I think the team has pretty good chance to win the constructor championship. Good luck!"
Steffen Diener (Power Tech), 2nd:
"I like the race track in phoenix and I had a good
race here. The traffic was easy to handle, except for
the last third when many cars were going extremely
slow without any good reason."
Benjamin Suerig (Amiga Racing), 3rd:
"I had decided to start the race on C tires, but I soon found I was much too slow. Therefore I used D tires for the rest of the race. Most of the time I was second with Hakkinen leading superiorly. Due to yellow flags and problems with lapping he was suddenly right in front of me. I got him on the very last lap. Turning into the last corner I... let him pass me to win the race! You probably know that Amiga Racing is a Mercedes team just like McLaren, and we thought Mika urgently needed those championship points. :-) So on the whole my first race in Phoenix was a very interesting, exciting, and also a hard one."
Jim Spratt (Lotus), 4th:
"This was one of the few times I wasn't on pole this year (started 2nd) but I
knew I'd have the edge in the race. However I made a crap start and Coultard
got past me. However by lap 18 Mikka damaged his nose, and I knew then that I
was about to take the lead as I was only 2 seconds behind David - hey presto I
was in the lead by lap 19. However I stopped on lap 30 for my 1st stop and
Schummi managed to get past me. I now realise why us F1 drivers get paid so
much as it was a battle to catch him - however I managed it on lap 37, retaking
the lead. However the team had a prob during the 2nd pitstop (cross-threaded
nut I guess), although it didn't matter as I went on to win the race - I'll do
better at Japan, tho my performance here encouraged me, as I hate the place..."
Darren Crawford (Bolgani), 5th:
"I'll start by saying, I did better this week because I finished and no ghostly tech problems occured. Got off to a great start by zooming through the leading cars into the first corner. Slid for about two laps hitting every barrier in site. I was gradually getting faster until, 3/4 way through I clipped my wing on a back marker, 'Didn't they seem rather slower than usual'. I thought these tires would hold me to the end, but with about 10 laps to go a convoy of F1's appeared in front of me. If I was going to get around them safely I had to pit, so I did. Took off again slithered threw them like a snake and then with 3 laps to go and no cars to be seen, I ran my fastest lap of the race, and then on to victory. lol"
Ian Parkhouse (Phoenix), 6th:
"Once again it was going well until one small mistake saw the end of my race.
On lap 70, I turned in a fraction too early for the fastest corner on the track,
hit the inside wall which bounced me onto the outside wall for a very nasty
accident.
Assuming Robert and Jim complete their races this will make it very interesting
for the Pro championship. I think I will still be in the lead, but I suspect
either of those will be able to overhaul me if I have a bad final round.
I'm looking forward to it!"
Olivier Leroy (CyberSpeed), 7th:
"I had a good start from the pole, but my car was very difficult to drive, and during the lap 18,
I broke my front wing. After that, I was on the 4th place, and few laps later, I was on the 2nd place,
but not for a long time, because on lap 26, I had to stop my race..."