Round 6 - Mexico (Mexico City)

ACE SERIES

1995/96 Pole Position:	1:09.353 (Grant Reeve)
1995/96 Race Time:	1h26m29.122 (Rene Smit)
Race Distance:	69 laps

Qualifying

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1:09.242		20
2.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1:09.445	+0.203	16
3.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1:09.490	+0.248	14
4.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:09.584	+0.342	12
5.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	1:09.652	+0.410	10
6.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1:09.775	+0.532	8
7.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1:09.888	+0.646	6
8.	Robert Schaftlein	Digitech	1:09.899	+0.657	5
9.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1:09.921	+0.879	4
10.	Axel Bruns	Nameless Horror	1:09.957	+0.715	3
11.	Michal Janak	MAGIA-Crysler	1:10.105	+0.863	2
12.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1:10.428	+1.186	1
13.	Derek Waters	Maverick	1:10.508	+1.266
14.	Paul Branney	Team Ecosse	1:11.521	+2.279

After the usual turbulent start the race developed very unusual: 9 drivers were very close together (within 30 secs) during the first third of the race before the pit stops stired the field up. The driver who set the pace in this period was Nuno Maltez, 3rd place finisher at Monaco. Following Maltez were Alan Strang from Team Ecosse and RST Racing's Reinhold Schatzer. After the first series of pit stops that started around lap 25 and a short front appearance of Oliver Roberts who was in fourth place most of the time till then, Hans Gunnar Hansen took the lead with Maltez in second and Schatzer in third.

From lap 50 on, Hansen got under real pressure from the drivers who chased him. Oliver, who was around 20 sec behind after his second stop, drove a bunch of 1m11s laps with the brand new set of D compounds and Reinhold Schatzer was also able to close the gap a bit to 6 secs.

In lap 58 Hansen had one driver less to worry about: Alan Strang, who was fourth and in touch with the three drivers in front, was involved in an accident that ruined his rear wing. He lost nearly a minute and found himself back in 9th place with no chance to get to a podium finish.

Oliver couldn't close the gap anymore as Hansen now drove constant 1m11s, but Reinhold was now only 3.5 sec behind Hans Gunnar and attemting to get a view at the gearbox of the FORT-Jiuqi. But in lap 64 Schatzer had some problems and needed 1m15s for the lap and that gave Hansen the lead that he defended until the end of the race. Reinhold had now to deal with Oliver behind him who came very close, but Schatzer managed to stay in front of the champion although he was probably happy that the race didn't last two or three laps longer.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1h26m33.442		175
2.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1h26m43.634	+0m10.192	170
3.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1h26m44.602	+0m11.160	165
4.	Robert Schaftlein	Digitech	1h26m56.586	+0m23.144	160
5.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1h27m15.661	+0m42.219	155
6.	Michal Janak	MAGIA-Crysler	1h27m19.574	+0m46.132	151
7.	Axel Bruns	Nameless Horror	1h27m26.849	+0m53.407	147
8.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1h27m56.999	+1m23.557	143
9.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1h27m59.238	+1m25.796	139
10.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	1h28m35.422	+2m01.980	135
11.	Derek Waters	Maverick	1h28m53.485	+4m24.463	132
12.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1h28m54.654	+2m21.212	129
13.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	65 laps		126
14.	Paul Branney	Team Ecosse	0 laps		123
15.	Uwe Schuerkamp	Wild 13	0 laps		123

Fastest Race Laps

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1.	Robert Schaftlein	Digitech	1:11.103 LR
2.	Axel Bruns	Nameless Horror	1:11.109
3.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1:11.163
4.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1:11.165
5.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1:11.372
6.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1:11.507
7.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1:11.621
8.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1:11.664
9.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:11.706
10.	Derek Waters	Maverick	1:11.725
11.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1:11.849
12.	Michal Janak	MAGIA-Crysler	1:12.344
13.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	1:13.158

Some of the driver statements

Hans Gunnar Hansen (FORT-Jiuqi): "Gambled on d-tyres from the start. They didn't last very long. Had to stop make pitstops on lap 21 and 46. A really boring race, no situations at all even though only 12 cars finished."

Reinhold Schatzer (RST Racing): "Finally after the last few disappointing performances I could manage to drive through a race without major troubles. Also the finishing time seems to be not so bad - let's see :-)"

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "A good race, but could have done a lot better. I made 2 punishing mistakes. (...) I improved on my time from last season though - probably mainly due to my CDD strategy (opposed to CC last season)."

Last modified: Monday 14 July 1997 - 18:02