France make it eight in a row

Alexandre Premat won both races at Sepang in Malaysia to tighten France’s grip on the A1 Grand Prix championship as Robbie Kerr was left cursing Great Britain’s bad luck.

Premat, who has alternated the French drive with Nicolas Lapierre, made it eight consecutive wins for his country, who now lead the series by an imposing 27 points from Switzerland and Neel Jani.

He was made to work for his first-race win though after misjudging a pass on pole position man Jani going into turn one.

That left him down in third but he hit back to win a breathtaking scrap with Kerr for second before pipping Jani to the win.

Kerr was on course to improve on that third place in race two before A1GP’s pit stop curse struck.

The new championship has been plagued by such problems and Kerr was the latest to suffer, with a wheel nut jamming and costing him valuable time in the pits when he was poised to beat Jani to second.

He was eventually able to resume but retired soon afterwards with a mechanical problem his team blamed on the pit stop drama.

Premat won comfortably from Jani, with the Czech Republic’s Tomas Enge recovering from a disastrous qualifying session to claim third place.

Premat must now hand the car back to Lapierre for the races in Dubai but he was jubilant after two wins which put France firmly in control of the championship.

He said: “It was a superb weekend for us. The car was fast from the first lap and I could push hard because I knew I had a good car.

“I’m delighted to add another two wins to our tally and it’s great to respond this way to my team-mate’s two wins in the last round.”

France’s position was also strengthened by more problems for Brazil’s Nelson Piquet Jr, who was second in the championship before today’s action.

As well as pit stop problems, A1GP has also suffered from a spate of start-line stalling and Piquet suffered for the second time this season.

As in Portugal, he was unable to get off the grid and dropped to the back before fighting his way up to 10th.

Piquet, who finished fourth in race one, was upset to lose out in such a way, especially when his Dutch and Portuguese rivals also stalled on the grid.

He said: “I am not happy with what happened today. I have no idea what caused the stall on the grid, and after that the car was difficult to drive.

“We are now third in the championship. We have to work hard before Dubai in three weeks’ time.”

Ralph Firman took solid points for Ireland in both races, finishing seventh and ninth respectively.