France were again ready for the start, this time from a standing position and made no mistake by being on the inside for corner one and coming out ahead of Portugal and the Czech Republic. However, behind them sitting on the grid, they had left the Netherlands, Brazil and Russia. This brought out the first safety car period while the cars were pushed off the grid and into the pit lane. The safety car stayed out for just the one lap and as it peeled off at the end of lap two was instantly followed by 10 of the competitors who chose to do their mandatory pit stop for tyres at this point. Again it was France leading the way, followed by Portugal and the Czech Republic.

Italy had made a storming start from eleventh on the grid but unfortunately it was too good to last as they were subsequently given a drive through penalty which lost them their fourth place. Indonesia was having a great race and on lap 13 managed to overtake both Great Britain and South Africa, unfortunately it was a short-lived advantage as the car immediately spun off and retired.

For A1 Team Mexico, the race came to an end on lap 10 when Canada ran into the back of their car which was seen by the millions of viewers worldwide via the on-board cameras. The safety car was deployed again to remove the stricken Mexican car, which was in turn one, and during this time the Portuguese car stalled during a pit stop and lost second place. The safety car lasted until the end of lap 16 and during this period, the South African car pulled off the track with a broken rear suspension, which had happened after contact with another car on the very first corner of the race.

France made another great start when the safety car pulled off to keep the lead, however the safety car was soon out again as in a move that was described by A1 Team Netherlands’ driver as ‘over ambitious’ the car speared into that of A1 Team Germany and they both retired on the spot.

The safety car was brought in at the end of lap 20 and again it was the car carrying the French Tricolore that led into the first corner, followed by Switzerland and Ireland who went on to take their first podium of the season. A1 Team Czech Republic moved up but fourth place was not destined to be theirs as a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane dropped them down to an eventual ninth place.

It was obvious that Alvaro Parente wanted to do well in front of his home crowd and after an exciting battle with first A1 Team Italy and then A1 Team Australia, he moved up to fifth place. Due to the amount of time spent under the safety car, the race ran for its full hour and at that point, France was seven seconds in the lead and scored its fourth win out of the six A1 Grand Prix races to date and bought its points tally at the head of the series to 50 with Brazil second on 42 and Switzerland third on 34.

   A1 Team  -  Driver  -  Time1  France  Alexandre Premat  1.01.05.054  2  Switzerland  Neel Jani  1.01.12.971  3  Ireland  Ralph Firman  1.01.21.387  4  USA  Scott Speed  1.01.24.477  5  Portugal  Alvaro Parente  1.01.32.774  6  Australia  Will Davison  1.01.40.228  7  Italy  Enrico Toccacelo  1.01.41.083  8  Brazil  Nelson Piquet Jr  1.01.41.719  9  Czech Republic  Tomas Enge  1.01.43.184  10  Austria  Mathias Lauda  1.01.56.834  11  Lebanon  Basil Shabaan  1.02.04.187  12  Great Britain  Robbie Kerr  1.02.07.401  13  India  Armaan Ebrahim  1.02.10.998  14  China  Tengyi Jiang  1.02.16.035  15  Pakistan  Adam Khan  1.02.21.971  16  New Zealand  Matt Halliday  35 laps  17  Russia  Mikhail Aleshin  35 laps  18  Canada  Sean McIntosh  20 laps  19  Netherlands  Jos Verstappen  18 laps  20  Germany  Adrian Sutil  17 laps  21  Malaysia  Fairuz Fauzy  15 laps  22  South Africa  Tomas Schekter  14 laps  23  Indonesia  Ananda Mikola  3 laps  24  Mexico  Salvador Duran  2 laps 

The fastest lap of the Feature race was recorded by A1 Team France on the twenty-third lap with a time of 1.31.106. Commenting on his performance, driver Alexandre Premat said: ‘The race was great, I had another good start – although the re-starts varied, some were good and some were bad, it was hard to keep Scott Speed and Nelson Piquet behind me. The car was great to drive again, I did the fastest laps and we are leading the series. I wish Nicolas Lapierre good luck for the next race.’

Second place finisher, A1 Team Switzerland’s Neel Jani said: ‘I had a good start, but nearly got pushed into the wall and had to be careful not to crash. I suffered from oversteer in the beginning of the race but after the pit stop the car got better. I nearly took first place during a re-start – but again nearly got pushed into the wall and was lucky not to crash. I’m looking forward to winning a race, we seem to be getting better and better every race, we are definitely progressing.’ Recording Ireland’s best race position, Ralph Firman said: ‘It has been a good weekend, despite having problems with the gearbox in Qualifying and I lost my front wing in the Sprint race. I went off the track trying to get past Canada, and thought my race was over, but I managed to get back on track and had a great pit stop which really helped a lot. I overtook Scott Speed during one of the re-starts, which was fantastic. The luck of the Irish seems to be working. I won’t be driving in Australia, but I’m really looking forward to getting in the car in Malaysia.’

A1 Grand Prix series points

1  France  50  2  Brazil  42  3  Switzerland  34  4  New Zealand  29  5  Australia  21  6  Canada  18  7  Ireland  16  8  Mexico  16  9  Great Britain  15  10  Netherlands  15  11  Malaysia  14  12  Portugal  14  13  Czech Republic  8  14  Germany  8  15  USA  7  16  Japan  6  17  South Africa  6  18  Indonesia  4  19  Pakistan  4  20  Italy  4  21  Austria  1