France strikes back in feature race

It was the first time in A1 Grand Prix's history that the winner of the feature event was different from the sprint race.

Despite only starting seventh as a result of a spin in the sprint event, Lapierre carved his way through the field early on and then took full advantage of a safety car period, which ruined the races of leaders Neel Jani (Switzerland, the sprint race winner) and Enrico Toccacelo (Italy).

They stayed out when the safety car came out, and effectively gifted the lead to Great Britain's Robbie Kerr.

Kerr made a great restart and used Lebanon's Basil Shabaan, who had taken the lead by staying out, as a buffer after passing him into Turn 1. Lapierre lost over three seconds finding a way past Shabaan, but then got his head down and carved into Kerr's advantage, as Robbie was suffering a handling imbalance after an early collision with Tomas Enge of the Czech Republic.

After hounding Kerr for lap after lap, Lapierre made his move with seven laps to go, diving down the inside of Kerr into a right-hand hairpin. The pass was clean, and Lapierre pulled away to win by over three seconds.

From 12th on the grid, South Africa's Stephen Simpson enjoyed a swift pitstop after a charging early stint, and even briefly headed Lapierre the lap after the restart, as he scored a convincing third place finish.

Portugal's Alvaro Parente finished fourth, but there was heartbreak from newcomer Phil Giebler, whose American car broke down with just a handful of laps remaining while running fifth.

That gave the position to China's Tengyi Jiang, who scored a superb fifth place finish, just ahead of Canada's Sean McIntosh.

Pos  Driver               Make             Time
 1.  Nicolas Lapierre     France             56m17.068
 2.  Robbie Kerr          Great Britain      +   3.714
 3.  Stephen Simpson      South Africa       +   6.690
 4.  Alvaro Parente       Portugal           +   7.999
 5.  Tengyi Jiang         China              +  30.788
 6.  Sean McIntosh        Canada             +  31.343
 7.  Mathias Lauda        Austria            +  34.442
 8.  Salvador Duran       Mexico             +  35.502
 9.  Jos Verstappen       Netherlands        +  36.145
10.  Will Davison         Australia          +  36.346
11.  Enrico Toccacelo     Italy              +  36.932
12.  Adrian Sutil         Germany            +  37.848
13.  Matt Halliday        New Zealand        +  49.124
14.  Armaan Ebrahim       India              +  49.448
15.  Hayanari Shimoda     Japan              +  1 Lap
16.  Basil Shaaban        Lebanon            +  1 Lap
17.  Neel Jani            Switzerland        +  3 Laps
18.  Tomas Enge           Czech Republic     +  3 Laps
19.  Adam Khan            Pakistan           +  4 Laps
20.  Philip Giebler       USA                +  4 Laps
21.  Ralph Firman         Ireland            + 23 Laps
22.  Ananda Mikola        Indonesia          + 25 Laps
23.  Nelson Piquet Jr     Brazil             + 26 Laps
24.  Alex Yoong           Malaysia           + 28 Laps

Fastest lap: Firman, Ireland, 1:46.497 on lap 3

Championship standings:

Pos  Team            Points
 1.  France           106
 2.  Switzerland       75
 3.  Brazil            60
 4.  Great Britain     49
 5.  New Zealand       42
 6.  Portugal          39
 7.  Ireland           37
 8.  Netherlands       34
 9.  Malaysia          33
10.  Canada            31
11.  Australia         27
12.  Czech Republic    24
13.  Italy             21
14.  Mexico            19
15.  South Africa      14
16.  USA               13
17.  Germany           11
18.  Indonesia         10
19.  China              6
20.  Japan              6
21.  Austria            5
22.  Pakistan           4