Round 7 - France (Magny-Cours)

ACE SERIES France (Magny-Cours)
1995/96 Pole Position: 1:06.984 (Rene Smit)
1995/96 Race Time: 1h28m43.791 (Rene Smit)
Race Distance: 71 laps

Qualifying

Steffen Diener from Roadrunner was the surprise of the qualifying session at Magny Cours. With only 0.103s behind championship leader Roberts, Steffen went to the front row of the grid for the first time in this season. After the session the experts were discussing what kind of barrier lies around 1:07.400. 6 drivers were within 0.084s proving that even a hundredth of a second can be worth *many* points (eight to be exact :-)

While both Ant Hill Mob drivers have rejoined the championship, two other drivers have announced their retirements for this season: Jan Svehlik (Bolgani) and Gary Leighton (S.RS Turbo) from the Semi-Pro series. Good luck boys and hopefully till next season!

PosDriverTeamTimeGapPoints
1.Oliver RobertsDigitech1:06.979 20
2.Steffen DienerRoadrunner1:07.086+0.10716
3.Alan StrangTeam Ecosse1:07.134+0.15514
4.Nuno MaltezMaverick1:07.434+0.45512
5.Reinhold SchatzerRST Racing1:07.463+0.49510
6.Robert SchaftleinDigitech1:07.485+0.5068
7.Hans Gunnar HansenFORT-Jiuqi1:07.493+0.5146
8.Ignacio GarciaIGC Racing Team1:07.495+0.5165
9.Markus KruggelWild 131:07.518+0.5394
10.Martin DevineEnigma Racing1:07.630+0.6513
11.Andrew ClarkAnt Hill Mob Racing1:08.130+1.1512
12.Stephen OrrAnt Hill Mob Racing1:08.224+1.1451
13.Paul BranneyTeam Ecosse1:09.129+2.150 
14.Derek WatersMaverick1:09.297+2.318 

Race

Oliver build up a ten second lead quickly and only Hans Gunnar Hansen and Michal Janak were able to stay that close behind. Oliver defended those seconds till his first pit stop in lap 18. Afterwards Hans Gunnar Hansen was leading the race - but just for four laps, then Hansen came in himself. After all the stops Oliver had a lead of 15 seconds with Hansen and Janak behind him. Hans Gunnar had a different race strategy: unlike most of the other drivers he aimed for two stops for his C tyres instead of three but this proved to be the wrong decision. With toally worn tyres he lost over ten seconds to Michal and Oliver between lap 44 to lap 49 - a big part of the gap that he had at the end of the race where he was again in 'grip trouble'.

Meanwhile not only both Ant Hill Mob drivers retired but Reinhold Schatzer dropped out of the group of front runners after an accident in lap 27 that broke his front wing.

During the next series of pit stops around lap 54, Michal had the lead for two laps because he was the last of the front drivers to visit his crew. Later, Michal came close to Oliver in lap 63 with only 2.8 seconds behind. But this was mainly due to a driving error of Oliver and didn't meant that Michal was consistently faster than the leader.

While the driver on fourth position, Steffen Diener, proved that his qualifying performance was no fluke, a second group of drivers had formed behind Steffen. It consisted of Alan Strang, Axel Bruns, Robert Schaftlein and Markus Kruggel who, especially from lap 59 on, were fighting very hard for 5th place. The most interesting confrontation developed between Alan and Axel, who were within tenths of a second between lap 59 and 70. Axel lost this battle due to a bad 71th lap were he was 6 seconds slower than Alan.

Although the seventh GP of the season ended with a win for Oliver again, the runner up wasn't closer this season. It looks like the opposition is forming up just in time to make the race for the world champion title interesting.

PosDriverTeamTimeGapPoints
1.Oliver RobertsDigitech1h28m00.411 175
2.Michal JanakMAGIA-Crysler1h28m09.063+0m08.652170
3.Hans Gunnar HansenFORT-Jiuqi1h28m24.799+0m24.388165
4.Steffen DienerRoadrunner1h29m09.537+1m09.126160
5.Alan StrangTeam Ecosse1h29m43.930+1m43.519155
6.Axel BrunsWild 131h29m47.035+1m46.624151
7.Robert SchaftleinDigitech1h29m53.230+1m52.819147
8.Markus KruggelWild 131h29m53.415+1m53.004143
9.Reinhold SchatzerRST Racing1h30m03.572+2m03.161139
10.Ignacio GarciaIGC Racing Team1h30m38.627+2m38.216135
11.Juha HyvonenFORT-Jiuqi1h32m15.503+4m15.092132
12.Martin DevineEnigma Racing37 laps 129
13.Stephen OrrAnt Hill Mob Racing25 laps 126
14.Andrew ClarkAnt Hill Mob Racing16 laps 123
15.Paul BranneyTeam Ecosse2 laps 120

Fastest Race Laps

PosDriverTeamTime
1.Michal JanakMAGIA-Chrysler1:08.969 LR
2.Oliver RobertsDigitech1:09.450
3.Hans Gunnar HansenFORT-Jiuqi1:09.474
4.Steffen DienerRoadrunner1:09.672
5.Axel BrunsWild 131:09.861
6.Alan StrangTeam Ecosse1:10.079
7.Reinhold SchatzerRST Racing1:10.097
8.Markus KruggelWild 131:10.135
9.Robert SchaftleinDigitech1:10.331
10.Juha HyvonenFORT-Jiuqi1:10.358
11.Ignacio GarciaIGC Racing Team1:10.965
12.Martin DevineEnigma Racing1:13.513
13.Stephen OrrAnt Hill Mob Racing1:14.846

Some of the driver statements

Steffen Diener (Roadrunner): "The race went pretty normal. I went for D-Tires and so I had to stop quiet often but also to overtake many cars, what turned out to be difficult, because the CCs act pretty nasty here and kind of holding you tight, when you try to overtake them."

Markus Kruggel (Wild 13): "Just too many little mistakes, most of all those spins that cost 10 seconds. Although I like the track, I don't like the CCs on it. I think it's the worst track for overtaking them because they have their weakest point exactly where I don't dare to overtake (the chicane before start/finish) and they do quite well in the other corners and bends."

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "A boring, but fast race. No big mistakes - just loads of little ones :-) I split the race into 4 equal segments using C tyres throughout - the tyre wear still got me though, as I overran onto the grass on the lap before my 1st and 2nd stops (both at the same location as well!). I had 2 silly little spins towards the end of the race - that's what I get for trying to go too fast ;-)"

Robert Schaftlein (Digitech): "I could have shaved about 40 seconds off my time simply by avoiding spins and one broken front wing which occurred while I was screaming into my pit position. I didn't brake. I simply executed the Grant Reeve pitting method. However for some reason the car was flung so violently that I smashed into my garage wall. Hrmph. there goes another 15 seconds... the other 25 seconds were lost on being a bit zombified from my first day of work. I hit enter to enter the pits at the end of lap 17 and lap 34. On both occasions I completely forgot I was coming in and simply hooned past the pit entrance to have myself flung violently to the left as the computer tried to make me enter the pits."

Alan Strang (Team Ecosse): "This was a very uneventful race, although I'm definately not complaining. The only incident worthy of note was an unbelievably stupid error on the last corner of the last lap. I mean, how else can you describe driving straight on into the wall? For one horrid moment I thought my engine was going to cut, but thankfully it didn't. I don't think I could have raced again had that happened! Oh yeah, the computer cars were awful in this race. They were slow enough to lose you significant amounts of time, but fast enough to make passing them rather tricky."


Last modified: Monday 14 July 1997 - 18:02