1996/97 Pre-Season Event

Pre-Season Event - Spain (Barcelona)

Qualifying Race Points Report

After a 3 month break, the IAF1GPC treck went to Barcelona to sort out things for the 4th championship that begins at the end of October. It was obvious that all the partying activity around the circuit was the reason that only 6 drivers started in this race :-) Oliver Roberts is the winner of this pre-season meeting. The Digitech driver and last years champion had no real opposition at the first dry race in Spain.

Qualifying (provisional) - Pole time last season: 1:11.350 (Hans Gunnar Hansen)

Pos Driver           Team                    Time      Diff.|Points
------------------------------------------------------------+------
 1. Oliver Roberts   Digitech               1:12.707        | 20
 2. Alan Strang      Team Ecosse            1:12.766  +0.059| 16
 3. Ignacio Garcia   I.G.C. Racing Team     1:12.997  +0.290| 14
 4. Markus Kruggel   Wild 13                1:13.263  +0.556| 12
 5. Stephen Orr      Ant Hill Mob Racing    1:13.300  +0.593| 10
 6. Uwe Schuerkamp   Wild 13                1:14.483  +1.776|  8
 7. Paul Robins      Blue Fliers            1:14.558  +1.851|  6
 8. Andrew Clark     Ant Hill Mob Racing    1:16.202  +3.495|  5

Race - 65 Laps - Winning time last season (wet): 1h42m30.483 (Michal Janak)

Pos  Car Driver         Team                  Fast.Lap  SessionTime|Points
-------------------------------------------------------------------+------
 1.   1 Oliver Roberts  Digitech              1:15.271  1h26m54.662| 175
 2.   7 Markus Kruggel  Wild 13               1:14.793  1h28m52.485| 170
 3.  14 Ignacio Garcia  I.G.C. Racing Team    1:15.039    -2 laps  | 165
 3.   4 Andrew Clark    Ant Hill Mob Racing     n/a       -2 laps  | 160
                                                                   |
 5.  12 Paul Robins     Blue Fliers           1:21.674    29 laps  | 155
 6.   5 Alan Strang     Team Ecosse           1:20.905    13 laps  | 151

Points (Qualifying + Race)

Oliver Roberts  195 (175 + 20)
Markus Kruggel  182 (170 + 12)
Ignacio Garcia  179 (165 + 14)
Alan Strang     166 (151 + 16)
Andrew Clark    165 (160 +  5)
Paul Robins     161 (155 +  6)

Stephen Orr      10 (  0 + 10)
Uwe Schuerkamp    8 (  0 +  8)

Report

It was the battle between Oliver Roberts and his former Digitech team mate Alan Strang that dominated the early stage of the race. The spectators were happy to see the lead changing constantly. Just 4 seconds behind them Ignacio Garcia and Markus Kruggel were fighting for 3rd position, but Ignacio Garcia was forced to visit his pit crew at the end of lap 12 after he smahed his rear wing. 2 laps later Alan was the first victim of the nasty curbs here at Barcelona: he lost control over his car and ended in a wall. This changed the situation on the front: Oliver Roberts was now leading in front of Markus Kruggel. In lap 30 Paul Robins, who was not quite able to follow the pace on the front, retired after a crash and joined the big IAF1GP championship opening party. Both front runners took a set of D's on their first stop in lap 28 (Kruggel) and in lap 29 (Roberts). The gap between them was some 13 seconds but in lap 53 Oliver's victory was decided in lap 53 Kruggel lost control over his car and ruined his rear wing. With a lead of 1m50s Oliver had only to bring his car home and the yellow flag incident he came across in lap 63 was no real danger to him. Ignacio had bad luck again in lap 55: he had to replace a broken front wing. Although nearly two minutes behind the leader, Markus set the fastest lap of the race with a 1:14.793 and that gives him the vacant lap reord at this track.

Some statements about the race:

Ignacio Garcia: "Disastrous!"

Oliver Roberts: "Nothing too exciting really."

Alan Strang: "This was quite a satisfactory attempt considering this was my first race since Adelaide in June, although my race didn't last as long as I would have liked."

Markus Kruggel: "Too many walls here."

Last modified: Thu Nov 07 22:23:25 1996