1996/97 Season (Ace)

Round 6 - Mexico (Mexico City)

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

Qualifying - Pole time last season: 1:09.353 (Grant Reeve)

Pos  Driver              Team                  Time        Diff.      Pts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1.  Reinhold Schatzer   RST Racing            1:09.242                20
 2.  Markus Kruggel      Wild 13               1:09.445   +0.203       16
 3.  Oliver Roberts      Digitech              1:09.490   +0.248       14
 4.  Hans Gunnar Hansen  FORT-Jiuqi            1:09.584   +0.342       12
 5.  Ignacio Garcia      IGC Racing Team       1:09.652   +0.410       10
 6.  Alan Strang         Team Ecosse           1:09.775   +0.532        8
 7.  Steffen Diener      Roadrunner            1:09.888   +0.646        6
 8.  Robert Schaftlein   Digitech              1:09.899   +0.657        5
 9.  Martin Devine       Enigma Racing         1:09.921   +0.879        4
10.  Axel Bruns          Nameless Horror       1:09.957   +0.715        3
11.  Michal Janak        MAGIA-Crysler         1:10.105   +0.863        2
12.  Nuno Maltez         Maverick              1:10.428   +1.186        1

13.  Derek Waters        Maverick              1:10.508   +1.266
14.  Paul Branney        Team Ecosse           1:11.521   +2.279

Race - 69 Laps - Winning time last season: 1h26m29.122 (Rene Smit)

After the usual turbulent start the race developed very unusual: 9 drivers were very close together (within 30 secs) during the first third of the race before the pit stops stired the field up. The driver who set the pace in this period was Nuno Maltez, 3rd place finisher at Monaco. Following Maltez were Alan Strang from Team Ecosse and RST Racing's Reinhold Schatzer. After the first series of pit stops that started around lap 25 and a short front appearance of Oliver Roberts who was in fourth place most of the time till then, Hans Gunnar Hansen took the lead with Maltez in second and Schatzer in third.

From lap 50 on, Hansen got under real pressure from the drivers who chased him. Oliver, who was around 20 sec behind after his second stop, drove a bunch of 1m11s laps with the brand new set of D compounds and Reinhold Schatzer was also able to close the gap a bit to 6 secs.

In lap 58 Hansen had one driver less to worry about: Alan Strang, who was fourth and in touch with the three drivers in front, was involved in an accident that ruined his rear wing. He lost nearly a minute and found himself back in 9th place with no chance to get to a podium finish.

Oliver couldn't close the gap anymore as Hansen now drove constant 1m11s, but Reinhold was now only 3.5 sec behind Hans Gunnar and attemting to get a view at the gearbox of the FORT-Jiuqi. But in lap 64 Schatzer had some problems and needed 1m15s for the lap and that gave Hansen the lead that he defended until the end of the race. Reinhold had now to deal with Oliver behind him who came very close, but Schatzer managed to stay in front of the champion although he was probably happy that the race didn't last two or three laps longer.

Pos  Driver              Team                  Time        Diff.      Pts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1.  Hans Gunnar Hansen   FORT-Jiuqi        1h26m33.442               175
 2.  Reinhold Schatzer    RST Racing        1h26m43.634   +0m10.192   170
 3.  Oliver Roberts       Digitech          1h26m44.602   +0m11.160   165
 4.  Robert Schaftlein    Digitech          1h26m56.586   +0m23.144   160
 5.  Nuno Maltez          Maverick          1h27m15.661   +0m42.219   155
 6.  Michal Janak         MAGIA-Crysler     1h27m19.574   +0m46.132   151
 7.  Axel Bruns           Nameless Horror   1h27m26.849   +0m53.407   147
 8.  Markus Kruggel       Wild 13           1h27m56.999   +1m23.557   143
 9.  Alan Strang          Team Ecosse       1h27m59.238   +1m25.796   139
10.  Ignacio Garcia       IGC Racing Team   1h28m35.422   +2m01.980   135
11.  Derek Waters         Maverick          1h28m53.485   +4m24.463   132
12.  Steffen Diener       Roadrunner        1h28m54.654   +2m21.212   129
13.  Martin Devine        Enigma Racing       65 laps                 126
14.  Paul Branney         Team Ecosse          0 laps                 123
15.  Uwe Schuerkamp       Wild 13              0 laps                 123

Fastest Race Laps

(Old Lap Record: 1:11.121 by R.Smit 95/96)

 1. Robert Schaftlein    Digitech          1:11.103 LR

 2. Axel Bruns           Nameless Horror   1:11.109
 3. Alan Strang          Team Ecosse       1:11.163
 4. Oliver Roberts       Digitech          1:11.165
 5. Martin Devine        Enigma Racing     1:11.372
 6. Steffen Diener       Roadrunner        1:11.507
 7. Markus Kruggel       Wild 13           1:11.621
 8. Reinhold Schatzer    RST Racing        1:11.664
 9. Hans Gunnar Hansen   FORT-Jiuqi        1:11.706
10. Derek Waters         Maverick          1:11.725
11. Nuno Maltez          Maverick          1:11.849
12. Michal Janak         MAGIA-Crysler     1:12.344
13. Ignacio Garcia       IGC Racing Team   1:13.158

Some of the driver statements

Hans Gunnar Hansen (FORT-Jiuqi): "Gambled on d-tyres from the start. They didn't last very long. Had to stop make pitstops on lap 21 and 46. A really boring race, no situations at all even though only 12 cars finished."

Reinhold Schatzer (RST Racing): "Finally after the last few disappointing performances I could manage to drive through a race without major troubles. Also the finishing time seems to be not so bad - let's see :-)"

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "A good race, but could have done a lot better. I made 2 punishing mistakes. (...) I improved on my time from last season though - probably mainly due to my CDD strategy (opposed to CC last season)."