Round 15 - Japan (Suzuka)

ACE SERIES

1995/96 Pole Position:	1:25.849 (Thorsten Leipe)
1995/96 Race Time:	1h22m51.462 (Rene Smit)
Race Distance:	53 laps

Qualifying

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1:26.100		20
2.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1:26.238	+0.138	16
3.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1:26.290	+0.190	14
4.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1:26.621	+0.521	12
5.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1:26.649	+0.549	10
6.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:26.675	+0.575	8
7.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1:27.040	+0.940	6
8.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1:27.268	+1.168	5
9.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1:27.358	+1.258	4
10.	Juha Hyvonen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:27.554	+1.454	3
11.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1:27.701	+1.601	2
12.	Andrew Clark	Ant Hill Mob Racing	1:27.725	+1.625	1
13.	Scott Dryden	Ultratrack F1	1:29.185	+3.085
14.	Derek Waters	Maverick	1:29.281	+3.181

This year's Japanese Grand Prix was one of those races without many exciting moments. Oliver Roberts immediately took the lead after the start followed by Steffen Diener and Reinhold Schatzer. Oliver profited from the D-tyres he started the race with, this of course meant that he would have to visit the pits earlier than the other drivers who were on the track with C's. Unfortunately for Oliver, getting into the pits proved to be tricky this time: not only that he had some spins on his planned in-lap due to his weak tyres - Oliver even forgot to actually turn into the pit lane at the end of this lap. So he had to do another lap on his worn tyres until he finally made his stop in lap 13. The same lap saw one of the other few incidents of the race: Alan Strang broke his rear wing and had to make a stop to repair it. On lap 15, Derek Waters retired being the second to do so after Ignacio Garcia Cuadrado was the first to end his race in lap 7.

After the first stops Michal Janak was leading the race and the positions behind him were held by Steffen Diener, Hans Gunnar Hansen and Reinhold Schatzer who was battling with Oliver for 4th position. All the positions kept stable even after the second series of stops around lap 29. the only major change happened when Reinhold had an accident in lap 35 forciung him stop for a new front wing. This costed him 3 positions but at least he was able to gain one posotion and end the race on 6th.

Michal's lead over Steffen wasn't too big but he was fast enough to keep the Roadrunner driver behind until the end but remarkably enough, his team mate Oliver failed to finish on the podium the first time this season. And worth to be noticed is that Martin Devine has finished this race - it's the first time he sees the checkered flag this season.

After all this GP wasn't one of the *very* exciting ones, so what about a wet race here in the next season, hoping that more will happen that can be reported? :-)

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1h22m22.153		175
2.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1h22m48.141	+0m25.988	170
3.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1h22m55.414	+0m33.261	165
4.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1h23m44.679	+1m22.526	160
5.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1h24m06.561	+1m44.408	155
6.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1h24m21.164	+1m59.011	151
7.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1h24m33.417	+2m11.264	147
8.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1h25m42.512	+3m20.359	143
9.	Juha Hyvonen	FORT-Jiuqi	1h25m58.478	+3m36.325	139
10.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1h26m35.154	+4m13.001	135
11.	Andrew Clark	Ant Hill Mob Racing	1h26m57.331	+4m35.178	132
12.	Scott Dryden	Ultratrack F1	-2 laps		129
13.	Derek Waters	Maverick	14 laps		126
14.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	7 laps		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.	2	M.Janak	1:28.267	52	41/53	3	0:19.465	92			43	10
2.	33	S.Diener	1:28.406	49	1/53	3	0:15.844	92			43	10
3.	10	H.G.Hansen	1:28.675	51	0/53	3	0:15.359	92			53
4.	1	O.Roberts	1:29.108	45	11/53	3	0:21.181	92			30	23
5.	8	A.Bruns	1:28.607	39	0/53	3	0:18.773	92			53
6.	37	R.Schatzer	1:30.569	45	0/53	3	0:24.942	92			53
7.	7	M.Kruggel	1:29.942	48	0/53	3	0:19.882	92			53
8.	5	A.Strang	1:30.650	50	0/53	3	0:35.589	92			53
9.	9	J.Hyvonen	1:31.300	38	0/53	2	0:21.239	90			20	33
10.	39	M.Devine	1:29.301	49	0/53	5	0:26.846	93			24	29
11.	41	S.Dryden	1:33.216	38	0/51	2	0:52.583	90			36	15
12.	30	D.Waters	1:37.003	7	0/14	0		91				14
13.	15	I.G.Cuadrado	1:35.881	3	0/ 6	0		95				6

New lap record: 1:28.267 M.Janak
(Old lap record: 1:28.355 H.G.Hansen at Japan 95/96)

What the top 3 said about the race

Michal Janak (Digitech): "I started the race on C's with same setup as last year, but this time I changed pitstop strategy to 3 pitstops instead of 4 pitstops which I tried last year. I was pleased with car setup, I drove it on limits. Sometimes the CC's made things bit complicated. My point was to make the best race, because I want climb to 2nd place in whole championship. I don't know if I will race next season. My internet acces at uni will end 31.6.1997 (if I will have E-mail address in my job, I really don't know)."

Steffen Diener (Roadrunner): "A pretty clean run this time, only twice I went off after S-Curve. I planned a CCCC strategy but then changed to CCCD and tried to beat last years flying lap, but failed with only 55 thousandth. For the first time I underbid last seasons race time, I was 3 seconds faster, hopefully my first podium finish."

Hans Gunnar Hansen (FORT-Jiuqi): "Began to lap cars allready on lap 4. Lost quiet a lot of time on each lap until my first pitstop on lap 14 because of this. After the pitstop I got some clean laps so I could put in some faster lap times. Chose a CCCC strategy with pitstops on lap 14, 27 and 40. Did get the 'rythm' of the track when I got some clean laps, so the end of the race was a lot better than the start of it."

Last modified: Monday 14 July 1997 - 18:02