Pre-Season Event 1 - USA (Phoenix)
ACE SERIES Qualifying Starting Grid Race Report Finishing Order Fastest Laps Driver Comments Download Mixed Logfile Action Replays Semi-Pro Results
	1996/97 Pole Position:  1:14.209 (Oliver Roberts) 1996/97 Race Time:  1h49m10.669 (Oliver Roberts) Race Distance:  81 laps

Qualifying

Nobody was really surprised to see who had qualified in the front positions. But what may suprise one or the other was that Oliver drove some 0.350 secs faster than last season's pole time that he held together with Reinhold. What will the pole time be in the actual IC race then?

Weather forecasts speak of 100% probability of a rainy race day. Now that the grid positions are sorted out, everybody's excited about the upcoming wet race, the first ever at Phoenix. Oh, did I say *everybody*? ;-)

Race

Until lap 5, Axel Bruns and Oliver Roberts were battling for the lead, but from then on, Alan Strang demonstrated that he'll be somebody to consider when the IC treck moves on to a wet Monaco circuit in the early season: within a few laps, Alan built up a lead of over 10 seconds to the others. He was in the lead until lap 22 when he broke the car's bodywork and had to visit the pits to repair the damage.

Three laps before this incident, Markus Kruggel began to close in on the Team Ecosse driver and so he was in lead after Alan's pit stop. Oliver was on 2nd but he couldn't close the gap - instead he even lost additional time due to a terrible 26th lap - he lost 25 seconds and found himself back on 5th, just behind Nuno Maltez. Markus' team mate Axel was now in 2nd, battling with Alan for that position. But that battle only lasted two laps as Alan retired in lap 28 after a crash.

The other drivers benefited from an accident that Markus had in lap 37 forcing him into the pits for a new front wing. For one lap, Nuno was in the lead, but only to see Axel taking it from him immediately. And even worse, Nuno had an accident two laps later and lost contact to the front runners as a result.

Axel added eight leading laps to the two that he had from the start, but his team mate regained the lead in lap 47 and during the following 20 laps, Markus increased the gap to over 30 seconds. The 68th lap of the race not only saw Nuno's second stop but also a change on 2nd when Oliver passed Axel. Although Markus complained about slight steering problems in the last laps, Oliver couldn't prevent the first race win of the Wild 13 driver.

(Mirko Patzenbein submitted a time of 1h57m, but problems within F1GP-Ed made his laps ultra-fast, so his result is not included here)

Race Statistics

A result from Michal Janak arrived (too) late. Although he wouldn't be ranked under IC rules, I don't want to withhold his result from you as he was faster than all the others.

What the drivers said about the race

Oliver Roberts (Digitech), 2nd:
"What a race! At the start it seemed that the CCs were way too fast, but by the end of the race I had lapped nearly all of them at least twice. The exception was Villeneuve - somehow he was in a league of his own and he came within 3 seconds of lapping me, but luckily a traffic jam helped me out. During the last half of the race I was driving as hard as I could to try and increase the gap between me and Jacques. It all paid off as he didn't lap me.(...) "

Axel Bruns (Wild 13), 3rd:
"(...)Villeneuve however, running in first place, was clearly beyond my reach; he pulled away to a half-minute lead after about a dozen laps. After I had settled into the race, Coulthard, constantly following in my slipstream, kept me busy for the main part of the race, but I was able to fend off his passing attempts, and could finally pull away after lap 60, when we hit a train of backmarkers. Coulthard also kept me from being lapped by Villeneuve, by keeping the race leader behind him."

Nuno Maltez (Maverick), 4th:
"It was not a good race; I was unable to keep pace with the fastest CC, and damaged my front wing twice loosing even more time in the pits."

Martin Devine (Enigma Racing), 5th:
"A decent drive apart from a couple of things. The first was using the dry-track braking point for the first corner on the second lap, which meant I had to stop for a front wing, and the second was going by a near-stationary car near the end of a lap, and being distracted enough not to brake - end of race. Also, it was a strange feeling for the tyres not to go off after a while - it made it easy to get into a rhythm."

Alan Strang (Team Ecosse), 6th:
"I hate Pedro Diniz. I hate the wet. I hate Pedro Diniz in the wet. Things were going reasonably well for me until my first brush with the rich Brazilian. Having said that, I'm sure Jacques Villeneuve would disagree with me, because all I did for the first 18 laps was to block him left, right and centre! Four laps later I came across Pedro for the first time. This was also the first car I had to lap. I managed that OK, but went straight into the next corner, damaging my nose. So the impossible mission of surviving the entire race wasn't to be. Then, just as I was making good progress though the field again, I came up to Pedro for a second time. I attempted to get a slipstream off him on the start-finish straight, but as I pulled out to pass him my car went wildly out of control and spun into the wall on the right at ninety degrees. That was that. I wouldn't even say I enjoyed what there was. It's just not possible to relax for one moment in a wet race. I still think I should give the Monaco wet race a miss! ;)"

Action Replays

• Axel Bruns (Wild 13):
  "My replay is a nice passing move past Gerhard Berger."

• Markus Kruggel (Wild 13):
  "I lost the start to Jacques, but was able to annoy the other CCs behind me by blocking them. Unfortunately, I made little mistakes in the opening laps and so a couple of CCs slipped through - M.Schumacher for example nailed a couple of fastest laps onto the track as soon as he passed me. I had my revenge later when I overtook him aggressively but ina fair action. (see the replay for that)"

• Nuno Maltez (Maverick):
  "My replay is from lap 40. I had just lost the second postion to Ralf Schumacher and to Coulthard, so I risked a triple overtake to regain my position (later on that lap I crashed trying to lap Frentzen, so it was all in vain)."

• Oliver Roberts (Digitech):
  "Towards the end of the race I made a slight mistake and ended up doing a 180 against the wall. Looking back, I was lucky not to get damaged when I reversed into a McLaren! This demonstrates a good recovery though :-)"

Download the replays (41K)