Brazil Wins First A1 GP Race

Piquet Jr took the lead at the rolling start and was never headed, beating the French car of Alexandre Premat by 2.440 seconds.

Premat, who started third on the grid, moved on the inside of Matt Halliday's New Zealand car the first time through Paddock Hill Bend and was able to hold Halliday off throughout the 18 laps.

Premat did set the fastest lap of the race, however, and like Piquet takes 10 points away from the race for his country.

Halliday had an eight-second gap back to the fourth placed car of Team Australia, with Will Power beating Great Britain's Robbie Kerr to fourth.

The only major incident of the race came on the opening lap. Former Formula One driver Jos Verstappen finished last in the Dutch car after a first lap accident with the South African car of Stephen Simpson.

As the grid for this afternoon's feature race is decided by the finishing order of the sprint race, Verstappen will start last.

Verstappen said: "The first and second corners went ok, but in the third turn, somebody came into me and broke some of my rear. There was nothing you can do when somebody does that. I have to start at the back for the second race, so that race is gone as well."

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Team             Time
 1.  Brazil           23:15.682
 2.  France           +   2.440
 3.  New Zealand      +   2.899
 4.  Australia        +  11.457
 5.  Great Britain    +  12.797
 6.  Mexico           +  17.273
 7.  Pakistan         +  18.032
 8.  Portugal         +  18.189
 9.  Switzerland      +  20.851
10.  Ireland          +  21.056
11.  Usa              +  23.866
12.  Japan            +  25.192
13.  Malaysia         +  25.351
14.  Germany          +  25.905
15.  India            +  27.793
16.  Italy            +  35.521
17.  Indonesia        +  40.333
18.  Czech Republic   +  40.346
19.  Canada           +  42.621
20.  Austria          +  55.293
21.  China            +  58.194
22.  Lebanon          +  59.092
23.  Russia           +  1 Lap
24.  South Africa     +  1 Lap

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Team           On Lap
     Netherlands       1

Fastest lap: France, 1:17.143 on lap 7