Round 7 - France (Magny-Cours)

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

* Qualifying - Pole time last season: 1:06.984 (Rene Smit)

Steffen Diener from Roadrunner was the surprise of the qualifying session at Magny Cours. With only 0.103s behind championship leader Roberts, Steffen went to the front row of the grid for the first time in this season. After the session the experts were discussing what kind of barrier lies around 1:07.400. 6 drivers were within 0.084s proving that even a hundredth of a second can be worth *many* points (eight to be exact :-)

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!

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

* Race - 72 Laps - Winning time last season: 1h28m43.791 (Rene Smit)

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'.

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.

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

* Fastest Race Laps

(Old Lap Record: 1:09.000 by O.Roberts 95/96)

 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            --

* Some of the driver statements

Steffen Diener (Roadrunner): "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."

Markus Kruggel (Wild 13): "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."

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "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 ;-)"

Robert Schaftlein (Digitech): "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."

Alan Strang (Team Ecosse): "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."


Last modified: Sun Mar 02 01:42:37 1997