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While both Ant Hill Mob drivers have rejoined the championship, two other drivers have announced their retirements for this season: Jan Svehlik (Bolgani) and Gary Leighton (S.RS Turbo) from the Semi-Pro series. Good luck boys and hopefully till next season!
Meanwhile not only both Ant Hill Mob drivers retired but Reinhold Schatzer
dropped out of the group of front runners after an accident in lap 27 that
broke his front wing.
During the next series of pit stops around lap 54, Michal had the lead for
two laps because he was the last of the front drivers to visit his crew.
Later, Michal came close to Oliver in lap 63 with only 2.8 seconds behind.
But this was mainly due to a driving error of Oliver and didn't meant that
Michal was consistently faster than the leader.
While the driver on fourth position, Steffen Diener, proved that his
qualifying performance was no fluke, a second group of drivers had formed
behind Steffen. It consisted of Alan Strang, Axel Bruns, Robert Schaftlein
and Markus Kruggel who, especially from lap 59 on, were fighting very
hard for 5th place. The most interesting confrontation developed between
Alan and Axel, who were within tenths of a second between lap 59 and 70.
Axel lost this battle due to a bad 71th lap were he was 6 seconds slower
than Alan.
Although the seventh GP of the season ended with a win for Oliver again,
the runner up wasn't closer this season. It looks like the opposition
is forming up just in time to make the race for the world champion title
interesting.
Markus Kruggel (Wild 13):
Oliver Roberts (Digitech):
Robert Schaftlein (Digitech):
Alan Strang (Team Ecosse):
Pos Driver Team Time Diff. Pts
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Oliver Roberts Digitech 1:06.979 20
2. Steffen Diener Roadrunner 1:07.086 +0.107 16
3. Alan Strang Team Ecosse 1:07.134 +0.155 14
4. Nuno Maltez Maverick 1:07.434 +0.455 12
5. Reinhold Schatzer RST Racing 1:07.463 +0.495 10
6. Robert Schaftlein Digitech 1:07.485 +0.506 8
7. Hans Gunnar Hansen FORT-Jiuqi 1:07.493 +0.514 6
8. Ignacio Garcia IGC Racing Team 1:07.495 +0.516 5
9. Markus Kruggel Wild 13 1:07.518 +0.539 4
10. Martin Devine Enigma Racing 1:07.630 +0.651 3
11. Andrew Clark Ant Hill Mob Racing 1:08.130 +1.151 2
12. Stephen Orr Ant Hill Mob Racing 1:08.224 +1.145 1
13. Paul Branney Team Ecosse 1:09.129 +2.150
14. Derek Waters Maverick 1:09.297 +2.318
Oliver build up a ten second lead quickly and only Hans Gunnar Hansen and
Michal Janak were able to stay that close behind. Oliver defended those
seconds till his first pit stop in lap 18. Afterwards Hans Gunnar Hansen
was leading the race - but just for four laps, then Hansen came in himself.
After all the stops Oliver had a lead of 15 seconds with Hansen and Janak
behind him. Hans Gunnar had a different race strategy: unlike most of the
other drivers he aimed for two stops for his C tyres instead of three but
this proved to be the wrong decision. With toally worn tyres he lost over
ten seconds to Michal and Oliver between lap 44 to lap 49 - a big part of
the gap that he had at the end of the race where he was again in 'grip
trouble'.
Race - 72 Laps - Winning time last season: 1h28m43.791 (Rene Smit)
Pos Driver Team Time Diff. Pts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Oliver Roberts Digitech 1h28m00.411 175
2. Michal Janak MAGIA-Crysler 1h28m09.063 +0m08.652 170
3. Hans Gunnar Hansen FORT-Jiuqi 1h28m24.799 +0m24.388 165
4. Steffen Diener Roadrunner 1h29m09.537 +1m09.126 160
5. Alan Strang Team Ecosse 1h29m43.930 +1m43.519 155
6. Axel Bruns Wild 13 1h29m47.035 +1m46.624 151
7. Robert Schaftlein Digitech 1h29m53.230 +1m52.819 147
8. Markus Kruggel Wild 13 1h29m53.415 +1m53.004 143
9. Reinhold Schatzer RST Racing 1h30m03.572 +2m03.161 139
10. Ignacio Garcia IGC Racing Team 1h30m38.627 +2m38.216 135
11. Juha Hyvonen FORT-Jiuqi 1h32m15.503 +4m15.092 132
12. Martin Devine Enigma Racing 37 laps 129
13. Stephen Orr Ant Hill Mob Racing 25 laps 126
14. Andrew Clark Ant Hill Mob Racing 16 laps 123
15. Paul Branney Team Ecosse 2 laps 120
(Old Lap Record: 1:09.000 by O.Roberts 95/96)
Fastest Race Laps
1. Michal Janak MAGIA-Chrysler 1:08.969 LR
2. Oliver Roberts Digitech 1:09.450
3. Hans Gunnar Hansen FORT-Jiuqi 1:09.474
4. Steffen Diener Roadrunner 1:09.672
5. Axel Bruns Wild 13 1:09.861
6. Alan Strang Team Ecosse 1:10.079
7. Reinhold Schatzer RST Racing 1:10.097
8. Markus Kruggel Wild 13 1:10.135
9. Robert Schaftlein Digitech 1:10.331
10. Juha Hyvonen FORT-Jiuqi 1:10.358
11. Ignacio Garcia IGC Racing Team 1:10.965
12. Martin Devine Enigma Racing 1:13.513
13. Stephen Orr Ant Hill Mob Racing 1:14.846
Andrew Clark Ant Hill Mob Racing --
Paul Branney Team Ecosse --
Steffen Diener (Roadrunner):
Some of the driver statements"The race went pretty normal. I went for D-Tires and so I had to stop quiet
often but also to overtake many cars, what turned out to be difficult,
because the CCs act pretty nasty here and kind of holding you tight, when
you try to overtake them."
"Just too many little mistakes, most of all those spins that cost 10
seconds. Although I like the track, I don't like the CCs on it. I think
it's the worst track for overtaking them because they have their weakest
point exactly where I don't dare to overtake (the chicane before
start/finish) and they do quite well in the other corners and bends."
"A boring, but fast race. No big mistakes - just loads of little ones :-)
I split the race into 4 equal segments using C tyres throughout - the
tyre wear still got me though, as I overran onto the grass on the lap
before my 1st and 2nd stops (both at the same location as well!). I had
2 silly little spins towards the end of the race - that's what I get for
trying to go too fast ;-)"
"I could have shaved about 40 seconds off my time simply by avoiding spins
and one broken front wing which occurred while I was screaming into my pit
position. I didn't brake. I simply executed the Grant Reeve pitting method.
However for some reason the car was flung so violently that I smashed into
my garage wall. Hrmph. there goes another 15 seconds... the other 25
seconds were lost on being a bit zombified from my first day of work. I hit
enter to enter the pits at the end of lap 17 and lap 34. On both occasions
I completely forgot I was coming in and simply hooned past the pit entrance
to have myself flung violently to the left as the computer tried to make me
enter the pits."
"This was a very uneventful race, although I'm definately not complaining.
The only incident worthy of note was an unbelievably stupid error on the
last corner of the last lap. I mean, how else can you describe driving
straight on into the wall? For one horrid moment I thought my engine was
going to cut, but thankfully it didn't. I don't think I could have raced
again had that happened! Oh yeah, the computer cars were awful in this
race. They were slow enough to lose you significant amounts of time, but
fast enough to make passing them rather tricky."
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