First Mexico win, France take title

In the first ever wet A1 race, the young Mexican drove faultlessly, holding off a strong challenge from Team France, who claimed the first A1 'World Cup of Nations' title with second place.

Duran was beaten into the first corner by the fast-starting Team New Zealand car of Matt Halliday, but the Mexican took advantage of the black car's lack of traction up the hill out of Turn 9 to drag his way back into the lead on lap two.

Frenchman Nicolas Lapierre went around Halliday for second place at the same corner later in the race, but despite a determined charge - and two safety car periods - Duran was able to stay out in front pf Lapierre for a memorable first win.

Alvaro Parente produced a charging drive for Portugal to take third, pulling a good move on Malaysia's Alex Yoong along the way. Yoong later spun off, causing the second of the safety car periods.

Robbie Kerr picked up fourth place for Team Great Britain, while Ireland took sixth on the final lap after Halliday ran off the track. This promoted Canada to seventh - Patrick Carpentier atoning for qualifying 18th with a strong drive.

Germany took eighth, Halliday came home ninth, while USA's Bryan Herta charged up from 17th to ninth.

Ryan Briscoe picked up the final point for Team Australia on his A1 debut. Fellow debutant Giorgio Mondini had a torrid race for the Swiss, picking up a drive-through penalty for passing under the safety car and then damaging his car with a trip across the gravel at the corkscrew.

Pos  Driver                Team            Time
 1.  Salvador Duran        Mexico          31:07.422
 2.  Nicolas Lapierre      France          +   1.771
 3.  Alvaro Parente        Portugal        +   8.040
 4.  Robbie Kerr           Great Britain   +  12.791
 5.  Ralph Firman          Ireland         +  24.390
 6.  Patrick Carpentier    Canada          +  26.027
 7.  Timo Scheider         Germany         +  26.416
 8.  Matt Halliday         New Zealand     +  30.474
 9.  Bryan Herta           USA             +  31.034
10.  Ryan Briscoe          Australia       +  34.647
11.  Stephen Simpson       South Africa    +  35.971
12.  Mathias Lauda         Austria         +  51.760
13.  Christian Fittipaldi  Brazil          +  54.200
14.  Jos Verstappen        Netherlands     +  55.266
15.  Adam Khan             Pakistan        +  57.676
16.  Giorgio Mondini       Switzerland     +1:00.478
17.  Tengyi Jiang          China           +1:13.008
18.  Tomas Enge            Czech Republic  +  1 Lap
19.  Max Papis             Italy           +  1 Lap
20.  Ananda Mikola         Indonesia       +  4 Laps
21.  Graham Rahal          Lebanon         +  7 Laps
22.  Alex Yoong            Malaysia        +  9 Laps