Round 8 - Great Britain (Silverstone)

ACE SERIES

1996/97 Pole Position:	1:15.304 (Alan Strang)
1996/97 Race Time:	1h21m06.194 (Oliver Roberts)
Race Distance:	59 laps

Qualifying

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1:15.063		20
2.	Reinhold Schatzer	Rocketship	1:15.227	+0.164	16
3.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1:15.309	+0.246	14
4.	Jan Svehlik	Bolgani	1:15.340	+0.277	12
5.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1:15.360	+0.297	10
6.	Mark McCubbin	McCubbin-Supreme	1:15.470	+0.407	8
7.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1:15.506	+0.443	6
8.	Marco Saupe	M&T-SPEED	1:15.545	+0.482	5
9.	Nuno Maltez	Rocketship	1:15.553	+0.490	4
10.	Mirko Patzenbein	Enigma Racing	1:15.641	+0.578	3
11.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1:15.734	+0.671	2
12.	Eik Hoffmann	Red Diana	1:15.832	+0.769	1
13.	Thomas Bodlien	M&T-Speed	1:15.847	+0.784
14.	Rafal Ziarnik	Yapamotox	1:15.919	+0.856
15.	Ignacio Garcia	Curb Crawlers	1:15.998	+0.935
16.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1:16.219	+1.156
17.	James Luscombe	V-Tec F1	1:16.384	+1.321
18.	Argyris Maistralis	Crash Heads	1:16.748	+1.685
19.	Jonathan Stead	Team Sted	1:16.944	+1.881
20.	Scott Dryden	Team Ecosse	1:17.253	+2.190
21.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1:17.518	+2.455
22.	Hendrik Mehl	Crash Heads	1:17.710	+2.647

The eighth round of the championship brought a couple of surprises to the IAF1GPC. First, the well known "mix-up" in the first part of the race was heavier than ever: positions changed every lap and apart from Rafal Ziarnik who was involved in an accident in lap 7, nobody really dropped off.

The first round of pit stops that lasted from lap 14 till lap 25 didn't help to make things clearer. Michal Janak took the lead in lap 20 from team mate Oliver Roberts, but mostly because Michal was the very last driver to make his stop. After that, things finally began to sort out: Roberts was in the lead, followed by Janak and Markus Kruggel, both ten seconds behind, but the Wild 13 driver was on a different strategy aiming for three stops and so he joined a big group of drivers after his second visit to the pits in lap 30. This group consisted of not less than six drivers, including Jan Svehlik, Kruggel, Alan Strang, Nuno Maltez, Mirko Patzenbein and Thomas Bodlien. Another driver, however, showed that he was able to keep the pace, too: Ignacio Garcia Cuadrado drove a couple of fastest race laps during the first third of the race and was not showing up at the front only because of an early accident in lap 16.

It needed another series of stops, lasting from lap 37 till lap 45, to give an indication of the possible race result, though. Oliver was still in front and Michal kept the gap smaller than 20 seconds. Svehlik was on third with 45 seconds behind the leader followed by Kruggel and Strang another ten seconds behind. For a couple of laps, both admins were very close, battling for 4th, but then Strang had a problem and lost 20 seconds in lap 50. This put him behind Patzenbein and while the first four positions were clearly taken by Roberts, Janak, Svehlik and Kruggel, all driving similar lap times, Strang and Patzenbein kept it exciting until the end. Behind those two, Saupe and Garcia were fiercely battling for 7th and usually passed the start-finish line side-by-side during the last few laps.

But again, the fastest lap times were driven by men further behind: Thomas Bodlien and especially Rafal Ziarnik were "pumping in some good lap times", as a more promintent commentator would have said. Both had a couple of low 1:17s at the end, resulting in a fantastic new lap record, set by Rafal with a 1:17.171

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1h20m41.276		180
2.	Michal Janak	Digitech	1h20m58.988	+0:17.712	170
3.	Jan Svehlik	Bolgani	1h21m36.026	+0:54.750	165
4.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1h21m46.927	+1:05.651	160
5.	Mirko Patzenbein	Enigma Racing	1h22m16.249	+1:34.973	155
6.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1h22m18.484	+1:37.208	151
7.	Marco Saupe	M&T SPEED	1h22m34.439	+1:53.163	147
8.	Ignacio Garcia	Curb Crawlers	1h22m36.896	+1:55.620	143
9.	Thomas Bodlien	M&T SPEED	1h22m43.501	+2:02.225	139
10.	Axel Bruns	Wild 13	1h22m53.421	+2:12.145	135
11.	Jonathan Stead	Team Sted	1h23m00.492	+2:19.216	132
12.	Rafal Ziarnik	Yapamotox	1h23m46.410	+3:05.134	129
13.	Hendrik Mehl	Crash Heads	1h24m08.790	+3:27.514	126
14.	Scott Dryden	Team Ecosse	1h24m13.285	+3:32.009	123
15.	Argyris Maistralis	Crash Heads	-1 lap		120
16.	Eik Hoffmann	Red Diana	55 laps	(93.2%)	109
17.	Nuno Maltez	Rocketship	48 laps	(81.4%)	92
18.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	41 Laps	(69.5%)	77
19.	Mark McCubbin	McCubbin-Supreme	10 laps	(16.9%)	18

New Lap Record: 1:07.171 - Rafal Ziarnik (Yapamotox)

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	C	D
1.	1	O.Roberts	1:17.610	54	48/59	2	0:19.726	92		59
2.	2	M.Janak	1:17.732	51	8/59	2	0:22.237	92	42	17
3.	21	J.Svehlik	1:18.062	57	0/59	2	0:25.665	92	21	38
4.	7	M.Kruggel	1:17.713	59	1/59	3	0:25.090	93		59
5.	40	M.Patzenbein	1:18.797	52	0/59	2	0:26.939	92	22	37
6.	5	A.Strang	1:18.539	48	2/59	2	0:24.723	92		59
7.	45	M.Saupe	1:18.402	58	0/59	2	0:24.625	92	24	35
8.	24	I.G.Cuadrado	1:18.359	51	0/59	2	0:39.155	92		59
9.	46	T.Bodlien	1:17.392	59	0/59	3	0:23.023	93		59
10.	8	A.Bruns	1:18.425	59	0/59	3	0:23.671	93		59
11.	37	J.Stead	1:19.162	54	0/59	2	0:21.321	92		59
12.	31	R.Zairnik	1:17.171	59	0/59	3	0:40.259	91	35	24
13.	16	H.Mehl	1:20.262	52	0/59	2	0:28.743	92		59
14.	6	S.Dryden	1:18.961	54	0/59	3	0:31.342	92		59
15.	15	A.Maistralis	1:20.167	55	0/58	2	0:55.450	92		58
16.	29	E.Hoffmann	1:23.102	12	0/55	1	0:55.983	92	5	14
17.	13	N.Maltez	1:19.005	46	0/48	3	0:48.117	92		48
18.	36	S.Diener	1:20.852	33	0/41	3	0:43.474	93		41
19.	50	M.McCubbin	1:23.493	9	0/10	0		93		10

Action Replays

All those replays for this round deal with the same issue: how to avoid crashing into retiring CCs...

Eik Hoffmann (Red Diana):
Nobody really likes to slow down at Silverstone when the yellow flags are shown, Eik didn't like that, either.
Markus Kruggel (Wild 13):
"Although I faced CCs a soon as lap 7 (and then I saw quite a lot of them retiring just in front of me on the straight, see replay) I found a rhythm and that four of the slowest CCs were the victims made me confident."
Mirko Patzenbein (Enigma Racing):
"My heartbeat gone higher and higher in the lap ???. There crashes Herbert and Katayama. After this crashes i dont get back my countinuely race. Look this nice replay...if you can."

Download the replays (33K)

Last modified: Monday 16 February 1998 - 19:38