1996/97 Season (Ace)

Round 3 - San Marino (Imola)

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

Qualifying - Pole time last season: 1:15.763 (Rene Smit)

Championship leader Oliver Roberts defended his position against Reinhold Schatzer and was able to put 12 additional points between himself and his by now strongest rival. With Derek Waters and Martin Devine, Imola sees two drivers score their first qualifying points of the season.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time      Diff.  Points
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 1.  Oliver Roberts        Digitech             1:15.966          20
 2.  Juha Hyvonen          FORT-Jiuqi           1:16.263 +0.297   16
 3.  Alan Strang           Team Ecosse          1:16.311 +0.345   14
 4.  Derek Waters          Maverick             1:16.470 +0.504   12
 5.  Hans Gunnar Hansen    FORT-Jiuqi           1:16.661 +0.695   10
 6.  Reinhold Schatzer     RST Racing           1:16.762 +0.796    8
 7.  Robert Schaftlein     Digitech             1:16.820 +0.854    6
 8.  Michal Janak          MAGIA-Crysler        1:16.873 +0.907    5
 9.  Martin Devine         Enigma Racing        1:16.876 +0.910    4
10.  Markus Kruggel        Wild 13              1:17.223 +1.257    3
11.  Jan Svehlik           Bolgani              1:17.270 +1.304    2
12.  Stephen Orr           Ant Hill Mob Racing  1:17.293 +1.327    1

13.  Alex Boshuizen        Revelations          1:17.590 +1.634
14.  Ignacio Garcia        IGC Racing Team      1:17.733 +1.767
15.  Axel Bruns            Nameless Horror      1:17.750 +1.784
16.  Steffen Diener        Roadrunner           1:17.973 +2.007
17.  Andrew Clark          Ant Hill Mob Racing  1:18.716 +2.750
18.  Nuno Maltez           Maverick             1:18.921 +2.955
19.  Paul Branney          Team Ecosse          1:19.079 +3.113
20.  Uwe Schuerkamp        Wild 13              1:20.086 +4.120

Race - 61 Laps - Winning time last season: 1h24m53.765 (Pedro Celli)

This race was very near to a commentator's nightmare: The winner in front all the time, winning with a lead of over one minute, most of the other drivers were struggling with the track and even the closest of all finishes, that between Jan Svehlik and Axel Bruns, was caused by a driving error. Grrr. Do it better next time, boys ;-)

Oliver was leading from the start on and did not even loose his lead during the pitstops. His DDD strategy worked well for him as Imola is one of the most tyre friendly circuits. But therefore it proved to be very unfriendly to the drivers. The first to experience this was Juha Hyvonen whose race ended just a few hundred meters after the start. Maverick's Nuno Maltez made it a bit better but his 5 finished laps meant that he would end up at the back of the points, too. The group of early retirerers was completed by Martin Devine from Enigma in lap 16 and Paul Branney in lap 19. All the others saw the checkered flag from the positon of the drivers seat although Uwe Schuerkamp and Andrew Clark were lapped once respectively twice.

The finishers damaged 9 front wings, Markus Kruggel and Derek Waters each killled two of the downforce tools, making their pit strategy useless. The honor to ruin the only rear wings of the race went to Alan Strang and Uwe Schuerkamp.

Pos  Driver              Team                  Time        Diff.      Pts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1.  Oliver Roberts      Digitech            1h23m43.681              175
 2.  Hans Gunnar Hansen  FORT-Jiuqi          1h24m57.831 +1m14.150    170
 3.  Robert Schaftlein   Digitech            1h25m09.186 +1m25.505    165
 4.  Michal Janak        MAGIA-Crysler       1h25m23.829 +1m40.148    160
 5.  Alex Boshuizen      Revelations         1h25m45.924 +2m02.243    155
 6.  Jan Svehlik         Bolgani             1h26m07.257 +2m23.576    151
 7.  Axel Bruns          Nameless Horror     1h26m10.683 +2m27.002    147
 8.  Reinhold Schatzer   RST Racing          1h26m15.971 +2m32.290    143
 9.  Alan Strang         Team Ecosse         1h27m22.523 +3m38.842    139
10.  Markus Kruggel      Wild 13             1h27m39.021 +3m55.340    135
11.  Derek Waters        Maverick            1h28m16.329 +4m25.219    132
12.  Uwe Schuerkamp      Wild 13                -1  Lap               129
13.  Andrew Clark        Ant Hill Mob Racing    -2  Laps              126
14.  Paul Branney        Team Ecosse            18  Laps              123
15.  Martin Devine       Enigma Racing          16  Laps              120
16.  Nuno Maltez         Maverick                5  Laps              117
17.  Juha Hyvonen        FORT-Jiuqi              0  Laps              114

Fastest Lap: Oliver Roberts (Digitech) 1:17.856 Lap 59

Fastest Race Laps

 1. Oliver Roberts        Digitech             1:17.856 LR

 2. Robert Schaftlein     Digitech             1:18.277
 3. Alex Boshuizen        Revelations          1:18.372
 4. Michal Janak          MAGIA-Crysler        1:18.458
 5. Hans Gunnar Hansen    FORT-Jiuqi           1:18.485
 6. Axel Bruns            Nameless Horror      1:18.721
 7. Markus Kruggel        Wild 13              1:19.148
 8. Derek Waters          Maverick             1:19.297
 9. Jan Svehlik           Bolgani              1:19.374
10. Alan Strang           Team Ecosse          1:20.004
11. Reinhold Schatzer     RST Racing           1:20.353
12. Uwe Schuerkamp        Wild 13              1:21.069
13. Andrew Clark          Ant Hill Mob Racing  1:22.072
14. Martin Devine         Enigma Racing        1:25.413
15. Paul Branney          Team Ecosse          1:27.621
16. Nuno Maltez           Maverick             1:27.164
17. Juha Hyvonen          FORT-Jiuqi           -:--.---

Some of the driver statements

Oliver Roberts (Digitech):
"Strategy worked as planned, although the fact I started on Ds might have been the reason why I got into so much traffic during the early stages of the race. Anyway, I'm very pleased with my time, and I didn't experience any major incidents - so a pretty boring race really ;-)"

Hans Gunnar Hansen (FORT-Jiuqi):
"Not my favourite track, but it went a lot better than last year I think. I am afraid however, that many other drivers also did a lot better than last year."

Alan Strang (Team Ecosse):
"All in all, it was a fairly disappointing race, especially the last few laps. Still, at least I finished, and that was all I was looking for."

Derek Waters (Maverick):
"San Marino is certainly not my favourite circuit. Both the chicanes disagree with my driving style. The profusion of computer car crashes proved to be my undoing, and I had to make three(!) pitstops to repair my wing after crashing into computer cars who were spinning! I crashed into Andrea Montermini twice! (Cue irate lead driver abusing backmarker argument!). Anyway, considering how much I dislike San Marino, I was happy to have actually finished the race."

Andrew Clark (Ant Hill Mob Racing):
"Well, at least I finished !!!!! Fairly uneventful race really But, I think Damon Hill was using an unautorised fuel. He shot round the track !!!!"

Martin Devine (Enigma):
"Well, I`ve mucked up the race big time (again), but I`m still happy because of the qualifying - I was hoping for a top twelve sometime through the season, but I wasn`t expecting much from Imola. Now the next trick is to finish a race..."