1996/97 Season (Ace)

Round 13 - Portugal (Estoril)

Qualifying - The Grid Race Report Result
Race Statistics Driver Statements Race Descriptions
Mixed Race Log Action Replays Semi-Pro Results

Qualifying - Pole time last season: 1:07.333 (Rene Smit)

Pos  Driver              Team                  Time        Diff.      Pts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1.  Oliver Roberts      Digitech              1:07.244               20
 2.  Reinhold Schatzer   RST Racing            1:07.458   +0.214      16
 3.  Michal Janak        Digitech              1:07.467   +0.223      14
 4.  Hans Gunnar Hansen  FORT-Jiuqi            1:07.470   +0.226      12
 5.  Alan Strang         Team Ecosse           1:07.509   +0.265      10
 6.  Juha Hyvonen        FORT-Jiuqi            1:07.646   +0.402       8
 7.  Axel Bruns          Wild 13               1:07.712   +0.468       6
 8.  Steffen Diener      Roadrunner            1:07.807   +0.563       5
 9.  Martin Devine       Enigma Racing         1:07.810   +0.566       4
10.  Nuno Maltez         Maverick              1:07.900   +0.656       3
11.  Ignacio Garcia      IGC Racing Team       1:07.903   +0.659       2
12.  Markus Kruggel      Wild 13               1:07.957   +0.713       1

13.  Derek Waters        Maverick              1:09.031   +1.787
14.  Andrew Clark        Ant Hill Mob Racing   1:09.141   +1.897
15.  Paul Branney        Team Ecosse           1:09.255   +2.011

Race - 71 Laps - Winning time last season: 1h27m44.527 (Hans Hunnar Hansen)

Although it was Oliver Roberts who was in front after the start this time, Reinhold Schatzer set the pace of the first part of the GP again. He was the leader after the second lap and held this position until lap 11, but then he lost his front wing and the necessary pit stop throw him back to last position.

Oliver was in the lead now, with Hans Gunnar Hansen close behind. The gap to Markus Kruggel, Michal Janak and Enigma's Martin Devine wasn't large either, but Martin fell back after he had an accident in lap 28. Until the second stop of both in lap 38, Hans Gunnar kept the gap to Oliver at around 10 seconds and after the stops he came closer to Oliver. In lap 50 the gap was only 3.7 seconds but Hans Gunnar then lost over ten seconds till lap 57 where their last stops took place.

One lap earlier began a phase for Schatzer that he self called 'disastrous': Reinhold, who was back in 5th place after his early accident, suffered from a damaged rear wing and had to go to the pits to replace it. In lap 65 it was the front wing that broke in an incident and one lap later he smashed the new wing that he got from his crew and had to make a stop again. All this caused him to end his race with 6 stops and one lap down.

Oliver's lead over Hansen stayed stable until the end and third place driver Michal Janak kept his distance to his team mate at 50 seconds, too.

Pos  Driver              Team                  Time        Diff.      Pts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1.  Oliver Roberts      Digitech             1h26m54.830             175
 2.  Hans Gunnar Hansen  FORT-Jiuqi           1h27m11.473 +0m16.643   170
 3.  Michal Janak        Digitech             1h27m41.354 +0m46.524   165
 4.  Markus Kruggel      Wild 13              1h28m08.613 +1m13.783   160
 5.  Axel Bruns          Wild 13              1h28m11.573 +1m16.743   155
 6.  Alan Strang         Team Ecosse          1h28m21.326 +1m26.496   151
 7.  Juha Hyvonen        FORT-Jiuqi           1h29m18.197 +2m23.367   147
 8.  Nuno Maltez         Maverick             1h29m47.538 +2m52.708   143
 9.  Reinhold Schatzer   RST Racing            -1 lap                 139
10.  Ignacio Garcia      IGC Racing Team       61 laps                135
11.  Martin Devine       Enigma Racing         56 laps                132
12.  Steffen Diener      Roadrunner            51 laps                129
13.  Andrew Clark        Ant Hill Mob Racing   31 laps                126
14.  Derek Waters        Maverick              14 laps                123
15.  Paul Branney        Team Ecosse            0 laps                120

Race Statistics

FP Car  Race_Time    Fast_Lap FL LL/TL PS Avg_Pits AG  A  B  C  D  Q  W
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1.  1 O.Roberts     1:09.136 62 61/71  3 0:18.110 92       57 14
 2. 10 H.G.Hansen    1:09.215 64  0/71  3 0:20.661 92       38 33
 3.  2 M.Janak       1:09.674 71  0/71  3 0:22.648 92       71
 4.  7 M.Kruggel     1:10.051 62  0/71  3 0:22.935 92       57 14
 5.  8 A.Bruns       1:09.844 66  0/71  3 0:23.446 92       71
 6.  5 A.Strang      1:09.993 62  0/71  3 0:21.816 92       71
 7.  9 J.Hyvonen     1:11.035 66  0/71  2 0:23.483 91       71
 8. 29 N.Maltez      1:10.212 62  0/71  4 0:34.352 92       41 30
 9. 37 R.Schatzer    1:09.460 69 10/70  6 0:33.774 92       57 14
10. 15 I.G.Cuadrado  1:10.607 61  0/61  3 0:32.629 91       59  2
11. 39 M.Devine      1:10.814 56  0/56  3 0:27.972 92       47  9
12. 33 S.Diener      1:11.674 47  0/51  3 0:20.635 93          51
13.  4 A.Clark       1:14.751 30  0/31  1 0:31.247 92       31
14. 30 D.Waters      1:14.961 12  0/14  0          93       14

Fastest Lap: 1:09.136 Oliver Roberts (Digitech) LR
(Old Lap Record: 1:09.324 by H.G.Hansen 95/96)

What the top 3 said about the race

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "I decided on a CCCD strategy, which was a bit of a gamble, but I think it paid off. I knew right from the first lap that this would be a good race - the car felt very comfortable even then. Traffic wasn't too bad, as it was relatively fast. The Williams cars were particularly tricky to pass. Luckily, after my last pitstop I had about 7 clear laps in which I could really push the Ds to the limit. I was a bit surprised when I realized how quick my time was compared to last season. So, I think I can safely say this is a very good result!"

Hans Gunnar Hansen (FORT-Jiqui): "Ahh. At last my favourite track. Tried almost the same pitstop strategy as last year with three pitstops, but this time I used C's twice and D's twice (D's three times last year).

Even if I did this the tires wore out very quickly so I didn't have any grip at all at the end of each tyre-set. Did drive even faster than last year so I hope I will beat Oliver in this race."

Michal Janak (Digitech): "I started from pole position on C's. I made good start and in opening laps I made some FL. One of difficult things was overtaking, I must overtake all cars thru whole race (only two cars went out of race after I crossed the finish line)."