Round 2 - Brazil (Interlagos)

ACE SERIES

1995/96 Pole Position:	1:08.719 (Grant Reeve)
1995/96 Race Time:	1h29m48.730 (David Pennington)
Race Distance:	71 laps

Qualifying

The second race of the season sees the same man on the front of the grid as the US GP. With his second pole in a row, Roberts continues to collect maximum points for him and his team. It's a remarkable fact that only Digitech and FORT-Jiuqi were able to place both drivers within the points while Michal Janak, the runner-up of the 1st race, was not able to score a single point in this qualifying session.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time      Diff.  Points
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 1.  Oliver Roberts        Digitech             1:08.458           20
 2.  Hans Gunnar Hansen    FORT-Jiuqi           1:08.573  +0.115   16
 3.  Christophe Macours    Maxell-TDK           1:08.685  +0.227   14
 4.  Alan Strang           Team Ecosse          1:08.764  +0.306   12
 5.  Robert Schaftlein     Digitech             1:08.798  +0.340   10
 6.  Reinhold Schatzer     RST Racing           1:09.111  +0.653    8
 7.  Alex Boshuizen        Revelations          1:09.226  +0.768    6
 8.  Axel Bruns            Nameless Horror      1:09.265  +0.807    5
 9.  Stephen Orr           Ant Hill Mob Racing  1:09.352  +0.894    4
10.  Jan Svehlik           Bolgani              1:09.395  +0.937    3
11.  Juha Hyvonen          FORT-Jiuqi           1:09.412  +0.952    2
12.  Markus Kruggel        Wild 13              1:09.444  +0.986    1

13.  Michal Janak          MAGIA-Crysler        1:09.709  +1.251
14.  Nuno Maltez           Maverick             1:09.780  +1.322
15.  Derek Waters          Maverick             1:09.935  +1.475
16.  Ignacio Garcia        IGC Racing Team      1:10.083  +1.625
17.  Andrew Clark          Ant Hill Mob Racing  1:10.150  +1.692
18.  Martin Devine         Enigma Racing        1:10.164  +1.706
19.  Steffen Diener        Roadrunner           1:10.195  +1.737
20.  Uwe Schuerkamp        Wild 13              1:10.605  +2.147
21.  Paul Branney          Team Ecosse          1:10.928  +2.370

Race

Just as in the first race of the season, the driver who was in front most of the time couldn't get away with the win. It was Oliver Roberts who dominated (not only) the early part of the race, leading it until his first pitstop in lap 21 that opened the common rush into the pits. Until Lap 15 Reinhold Schatzer occupied 2nd place with FORT-Jiuqi's Hans Gunnar Hansen right behind him, but Hansen was then able to overtake Schatzer. He defended his 2nd place for 6 laps, lost it to Schatzer again and found himself on 3rd place with 5 secs behind Schatzer right after the stops of both in lap 26. Alan Strang from Team Ecosse must have had an interesting first third of the race as he was on 4th position all the time. But as a member of a team, he had to deal with his team mate's accident: Paul Branney was out of the race after an accident in lap 22.

Due to his stop, Roberts lost his first position only for a time to Schatzer and Hansen. It was no real surprise that Roberts was leading again after everybody from the front of the field did their stops. This was done by lap 27 and Oliver had a comfortable 13s lead to the second place man Reinhold Schatzer compared to the 3 seconds it was before the stops. The things at the front were one thing to watch but what happened at the end of the field was worth watching, too. A few laps after the start, a battle between the 6 drivers from position 10 to 15 developed. The people involved were Jan Svehlik, Stephen Orr, Ignacio Garcia, Juha Hyvonen, Axel Bruns and Derek Waters. Those six were battling to get on 10th position and it first looked as Svehlik could control the other five. But from those who followed him, Ignacio Garcia was keen to be 10th and he stormed from his 15th place to the on he wanted to be within 5 laps. This interesting dispute between those six was stopped after the everybody had done his pit stop and the drivers were scsttered around the circuit. Ironically, Garcia was put down to 14th place again.

On the front, Schatzer was able to keep the gap just under 20 seconds till Roberts next stop in lap 41 but Roberts rejoined the field as the leader again just 0.8s in front of Schatzer. As Roberts was now running on fresh D-Compounds while Schatzer still had to cope with his C tyres that he took in lap 25, Oliver was able to build up a bigger lead to Schatzer very soon. Meanwhile in lap 49, Ant Hill Mob's Stephen Orr was the victim of a severe accident and had to end his race. In lap 52 Schatzer went into the pits and left them with Ds. Four laps later Roberts had a date with his pit crew, too, and started the last 15 laps that were lying in front of him also on D tyres. He was second right after he rejoined the field, with Strang, his team mate from last year, 3 secs behind. Reinhold was setting the pace on the front now and Roberts wasn't able to follow. Two spins from Roberts in laps 61 and 67 robbed him the last chance to win this race although he drove the fastest lap with a 1:10.887 in lap 65. Roberts' first spin put Strang in second position and made it Hansen possible to take 3rd place from Roberts a lap later. The second spin made Michal Janak 4th while Roberts found himself back on 5th place. The finish was quite narrow especially between 2nd place Alan and 3rd place Hans Gunnar.

Pos  Driver              Team                  Time        Diff.      Pts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1.  Reinhold Schatzer   RST Racing            1h29m08.319            175
 2.  Alan Strang         Team Ecosse           1h29m10.650 +0m02.331  170
 3.  Hans Gunnar Hansen  FORT-Jiuqi            1h29m11.006 +0m02.687  165
 4.  Michal Janak        MAGIA-Crysler         1h29m17.911 +0m09.592  160
 5.  Oliver Roberts      Digitech              1h29m25.170 +0m16.751  155
 6.  Robert Schaftlein   Digitech              1h29m43.925 +0m35.606  151
 7.  Markus Kruggel      Wild 13               1h29m52.856 +0m44.537  147
 8.  Nuno Maltez         Maverick              1h30m34.530 +1m26.211  143
 9.  Axel Bruns          Nameless Horror       1h31m00.475 +1m52.156  139
10.  Steffen Diener      Roadrunner            1h31m10.325 +2m02.006  135
11.  Derek Waters        Maverick              1h31m33.538 +2m25.219  132
12.  Juha Hyvonen        FORT-Jiuqi            1h31m42.519 +2m34.200  129
13.  Alex Boshuizen      Revelations           1h31m49.575 +2m41.256  126
14.  Jan Svehlik         Bolgani               1h31m51.771 +2m43.452  123
15.  Ignacio Garcia      IGC Racing Team       1h31m52.548 +2m44.229  120
16.  Uwe Schuerkamp      Wild 13               1h32m45.844 +3m37.525  117
17.  Stephen Orr         Ant Hill Mob Racing      47 Laps             114
18.  Paul Branney        Team Ecosse              22 laps             111

Fastest Race Laps

 1. Oliver Roberts     Digitech              1:10.887 LR

 2. Reinhold Schatzer  RST Racing            1:11.088
 3. Steffen Diener     Roadrunner            1:11.232
 4. Michal Janak       MAGIA-Crysler         1:11.242
 5. Hans Gunnar Hansen FORT-Jiuqi            1:11.252
 6. Alan Strang        Team Ecosse           1:11.400
 7. Alex Boshuizen     Revelations           1:11.407
 8. Markus Kruggel     Wild 13               1:11.408
 9. Axel Bruns         Nameless Horror       1:11.595
10. Jan Svehlik        Bolgani               1:11.851
11. Robert Schaftlein  Digitech              1:11.946
12. Nuno Maltez        Maverick              1:12.369
13. Ignacio Garcia     IGC Racing Team       1:13.309
14. Derek Waters       Maverick              1:13.317
15. Juha Hyvonen       FORT-Jiuqi            1:13.527
16. Stephen Orr        Ant Hill Mob Racing   1:14.088
17. Uwe Schuerkamp     Wild 13               1:14.728
18. Paul Branney       Team Ecosse           1:18.162

Some of the driver statements

Reinhold Schatzer (Racing): "Quite a straightforward race except for a few problems with the backmarkers - in lap 62 and 63 they cost me about 10 seconds."

Alan Strang (Team Ecosse): "...it was another perfect race, this time beating last year's winning time by an impressive 38 seconds. The previous race at USA can't have been a fluke then."

Hans Gunnar Hansen (FORT-Jiuqi): "The race overall went very well, and I think it's one of my best races ever on one of my favourite tracks."

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "I'm glad that race is over - I wasn't looking forward to it, and with good reason too..."

Nuno Maltez (Maverick): "Not my favourite circuit. It's amazing how easily I forget in which part of the track I am."

Steffen Diener (Roadrunner): "Just how many Minardis are out there. I had to overtake a lot of them."

Uwe Schuerkamp (Wild 13): "I'm very happy for the team that I could finish the race this time, and I hope my points contribution will set us further ahead in this year's constructors championship."

Last modified: Tuesday 24 June 1997 - 17:03