Round 4 - Monaco (Monte Carlo)

ACE SERIES

1995/96 Pole Position:	1:12.164 (Robert Schaftlein)
1995/96 Race Time:	1h42m06.850 (Rene Smit)
Race Distance:	78 laps

Qualifying

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1:11.681		20
2.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1:12.252	+0.571	16
3.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:12.269	+0.588	14
4.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1:12.292	+0.611	12
5.	Robert Schaftlein	Digitech	1:12.376	+0.695	10
6.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1:12.472	+0.791	8
7.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1:12.624	+0.943	6
8.	Axel Bruns	Nameless Horror	1:12.650	+0.969	5
9.	Michal Janak	MAGIA-Crysler	1:12.834	+1.153	4
10.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1:13.110	+1.429	3
11.	Juha Hyvonen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:13.929	+2.248	2
12.	Derek Waters	Maverick	1:13.978	+2.297	1
13.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	1:14.198	+2.517
14.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1:14.564	+3.883
15.	Uwe Schuerkamp	Wild 13	1:14.670	+3.989
16.	Paul Branney	Team Ecosse	1:16.410	+4.729

Oliver Roberts not only dominated the qualifying session of this year's fourth GP, he also won the race with a massive gap of 1m30s. Only Digitech teammate Robert Schaftlein was able to follow Roberts and even he was only able to do so during the first couple of laps. Oliver began early to build up his lead and he extended it constantly during the race.

Together with Schaftlein, Michal Janak and Nuno Maltez were the drivers to make the race an interesting one. Especially between lap 52 and 62 the three showed the spectators a hard battle for the runner-up place on the podium. Schaftlein dropped out of this group in lap 62 due to a broken front wing that forced him into the pits. During the same time Reinhold Schatzer, Axel Bruns and Markus Kruggel were trying to give a similar spectacle and they were even closer: they crossed the start-finish line after 56 laps with .2 of a second between them. Getting around the sharp right corner after the straight must have been an exciting moment for all three drivers :-) Axel went into the pits after the next lap for a planned stop but Reinhold had to visit his pit crew for a new set of wings after he had a massive accident in lap 72.

One of the first to retire was FORT-Jiuqi's Juha Hyvonen who ended the race after just 18 laps. Derek Waters was the man who had the most pit stops (4) and maybe he wasn't too sad as he stepped out of his damaged car in lap 58. His appearance lasted 8 laps longer than that of Martin Devine whose race was over after he completed 49 laps.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Points
1.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1h40m17.238		175
2.	Michal Janak	MAGIA-Crysler	1h41m47.421	+1m30.183	170
3.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1h42m07.739	+1m50.401	165
4.	Robert Schaftlein	Digitech	1h42m11.054	+1m53.816	160
5.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1h42m38.478	+2m21.240	155
6.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1h42m46.314	+2m29.076	151
7.	Axel Bruns	Nameless Horror	1h42m59.472	+2m42.234	147
8.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1h43m01.031	+2m43.793	143
9.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1h43m01.435	+2m44.197	139
10.	Uwe Schuerkamp	Wild 13	1h44m19.877	+4m02.639	135
11.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1h44m41.701	+4m24.463	132
12.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	1h45m20.264	+5m03.026	129
13.	Derek Waters	Maverick	56 laps		126
14.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	49 laps		123
15.	Juha Hyvonen	FORT-Jiuqi	19 laps		120
16.	Paul Branney	Team Ecosse	14 laps		117

Fastest Race Laps

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1.	Oliver Roberts	Digitech	1:13.309 LR
2.	Robert Schaftlein	Digitech	1:13.926
3.	Steffen Diener	Roadrunner	1:13.989
4.	Michal Janak	MAGIA-Crysler	1:14.216
5.	Axel Bruns	Nameless Horror	1:14.301
6.	Markus Kruggel	Wild 13	1:14.335
7.	Hans Gunnar Hansen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:14.699
8.	Reinhold Schatzer	RST Racing	1:14.785
9.	Alan Strang	Team Ecosse	1:14.940
10.	Ignacio Garcia	IGC Racing Team	1:15.074
11.	Nuno Maltez	Maverick	1:15.224
12.	Uwe Schuerkamp	Wild 13	1:15.458
13.	Derek Waters	Maverick	1:16.337
14.	Martin Devine	Enigma Racing	1:18.063
15.	Juha Hyvonen	FORT-Jiuqi	1:20.177

Some of the driver statements

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "An excellent race, apart from the last lap when I drove into a backmarker and damaged my front wing - that cost me about 10 seconds. Apart from that though it went almost perfectly. I remember saying that last season, but as I have beaten Rene's time by 2 minutes I think I really did do well this time. My DDD strategy probably had something to do with it."

Michal Janak (MAGIA-Chrysler): "When I crossed the checquered flag, I was tired but very happy with my result. I didn't damage the car, but many times I made contact with deadly looking walls."

Nuno Maltez (Maverick): "Being my favourite circuit and the first race of the holiday season, I put some special care into its preparation. (...) The main trick is to avoid losing your head when overtaking slow CCs, which will inevitably lead to losing valuable time. So, I tried to do a regular race with a fairly simple pit-stop strategy."

Last modified: Monday 14 July 1997 - 18:02