Doornbos wins Algarve sprint race

The Team Netherlands driver out-dragged polesitter Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy) into the first corner and was never seriously challenged after that.

Liuzzi could not match his qualifying pace in the race, and as he held up the chasing pack, Doornbos built up a lead that kept him comfortably ahead during the pitstop phase.

Both Ireland's Adam Carroll and Portuguese favourite Filipe Albuquerque jumped ahead of the Team Italy car during the stops, and they claimed the other podium slots. On a clear track and on fresh tyres, Carroll set the fastest lap to boost Team Ireland's title chances.

Liuzzi came home fourth, ahead of Team Monaco's Clivio Piccione and India's Narain Karthikeyan, who had an entertaining dice for fifth.

The race was cut short following a bizarre accident involving Team Brazil's Felipe Guimaraes and Adrian Zaugg's South Africa car.

Zaugg was running two laps down after suffering a technical problem at the start, and as Guimaraes, who was running seventh, was coming up to lap him the Brazilian appeared to misjudge the width of his car and sideswiped the South African, causing severe damage to both machines.

Neel Jani charged up to eighth from last on the grid, but the Swiss team did not get its point as Jani was adjudged to have stopped outside the pit window.

The race was red-flagged before he had taken his stop and go, so a time penalty was applied. This promoted Fairy Fauzy and Team Malaysia to eighth.

Pos  Driver              Team           Time
 1.  Robert Doornbos     Netherlands    19m33.501s
 2.  Adam Carroll        Ireland         +  3.635s
 3.  Filipe Albuquerque  Portugal        +  5.728s
 4.  Vitantonio Liuzzi   Italy           +  9.087s
 5.  Clivio Piccione     Monaco          + 10.048s
 6.  Narain Karthikeyan  India           + 12.596s
 7.  Felipe Guimaraes    Brazil          + 13.297s
 8.  Fairuz Fauzy        Malaysia        + 18.014s
 9.  Salvador Duran      Mexico          + 20.545s
10.  John Martin         Australia       + 22.683s
11.  Dan Clarke          Great Britain   + 23.080s
12.  Marco Andretti      USA             + 23.154s
13.  Nicolas Prost       France          + 24.175s
14.  Zahir Ali           Indonesia       + 39.400s
15.  Neel Jani           Switzerland     + 44.296s
16.  Ho-Pin Tung         China           + 50.655s

Not classified/retirements:

     Driver              Team            Laps
     Adrian Zaugg        South Africa    9
     Daniel Morad        Lebanon         1
     Andre Lotterer      Germany         0
     Earl Bamber         New Zealand     0