France continues winning streak

Lapierre dominated the 19-lap race and survived two safety car restarts, pulling away to more than eight seconds by the chequered flag.

Lapierre has now won all three races he has started for Les Bleus, after his double victory at the EuroSpeedway last month.

Portugal's Alvaro Parente held off a strong challenge by Team Brazil's Nelson Piquet Jr for second.

Parente seemed to be struggling with his tyres as the race went on, allowing Piquet to hound this year's British F3 Champion. However, Parente held on strongly to take his first podium of the season in second, ahead of Piquet.

Ireland's Michael Davaney and Great Britian's Robbie Kerr made the most of a slow start from Switzerland's Neel Jani to finish fourth and fifth respectively.

There were several early accidents at turn two that brought out two safety car periods in the opening laps.

South Africa's Stephen Simpson and Czech Republic's Tomas Enge both went off at the start. Simpson recovered, however Enge spun while off track and couldn't get going again with damaged suspension.

On the subsequent restart, Germany's Adrian Sutil went over the back of Mexico's Salvador Duran at the same corner after Sutil tried to take advantage of Duran being slowed on the approach.

Duran had attempted to pass Italy's Enrico Toccacelo through the first turn, however as Duran lined up another attempt in Turn Two Sutil tried to pass both of them down the inside. He got onto the grass and hit Duran, however Toccacelo survived unscathed.

Simpson was involved in another accident retired later following a suspension damage after a clash with Lebanon's Basil Shaaban.

Mattias Lauda ran into the back of Japan's Hayanari Shimoda on the final lap, handing Team USA's Bryan Herta an extra two positions on the grid in 15th for this afternoon's feature races, after managing to avoid the pair in the accident.

Pos  Team            Driver            Time
 1.  France          Nicolas Lapierre  30:32.582
 2.  Portugal        Alvaro Parente    +   8.699
 3.  Brazil          Nelson Piquet Jr  +   9.095
 4.  Ireland         Michael Devaney   +  12.485
 5.  Great Britain   Robbie Kerr       +  17.473
 6.  Switzerland     Neel Jani         +  19.984
 7.  Netherlands     Jos Verstappen    +  24.556
 8.  Malaysia        Alex Yoong        +  26.836
 9.  Canada          Sean Mcintosh     +  27.886
10.  Italy           Enrico Toccacelo  +  29.820
11.  Australia       Will Davison      +  30.426
12.  Pakistan        Adam Khan         +  38.112
13.  Russia          Roman Rusinov     +  39.018
14.  New Zealand     Jonny Reid        +  40.064
15.  USA             Bryan Herta       +  49.910
16.  China           Tengyi Jiang      +  51.119
17.  India           Armaan Ebrahim    +  52.753
18.  Japan           Hayanari Shimoda  +  1 Lap 
19.  Austria         Mathias Lauda     +  1 Lap 
20.  Lebanon         Basil Shaaban     +  8 Laps
21.  South Africa    Stephen Simpson   + 11 Laps
22.  Mexico          Salvador Duran    + 16 Laps
23.  Germany         Adrian Sutil      + 16 Laps
24.  Czech Republic  Tomas Enge        + 19 Laps

Fastest lap: Lapierre, France, 1:19.751 on lap 8