Germany unbeatable in Durban

Team Germany made it a perfect weekend by adding the feature race and sprint event to Saturday’s pole position at the A1GP in South Africa.

Driver Nico Hulkenberg set a new series record by winning his eighth race of 2007 with the feature triumph, beating the total of France’s Alexandre Premat from last year.

The 19-year-old’s clean sweep around the streets of Durban moved Germany 30 points clear of New Zealand at the top of the championship standings.

Hulkenberg’s feature win, his sixth consecutive victory, was a blend of calmness and raw speed as he showed the field a clean pair of heels from the off.

By lap 35, he was 22 seconds clear of the fast-starting Robbie Kerr, of Great Britain, but his advantage was wiped out when the USA’s Jonathan Summerton crashed into one of the concrete walls which lined the temporary track.

The restart provided the best chance for anyone to challenge Hulkenberg, but Kerr was hampered by the presence of Pakistan’s Nur Ali between him and the leader.

That gave Hulkenberg the chance to get the hammer down again and by lap 49 he was 10 seconds ahead again and cruising.

Kerr put in a fine performance finish second having started ninth, making the most of a first-corner pile-up, a safety-car period and the misfortune of others, including the retirement of France’s Loic Duval and Dutch racer Jeroen Bleekemolen’s drive-through penalty.

Behind Kerr at the chequered flag was New Zealand’s Matt Halliday in third, Switzerland’s Neel Jani fourth and Portugal’s Alvaro Parente fifth.

Bleekemolen’s penalty meant he had to settle for sixth when he looked nailed-on for second otherwise, and Bruno Junqueira took seventh for Brazil.

Malaysia’s Alex Yoong was the last finisher in eighth and with the attrition rate high, Narain Karthikeyan of India and Pakistan’s Ali were classified ninth and 10th respectively, the latter scoring their first A1GP point.

In the earlier sprint race, Hulkenberg turned in a lights-to-flag victory, defending his pole down to the first hairpin, gradually pulling clear of Duval to finish 2.7 seconds ahead .

Duval had lined up third, but got ahead of Halliday on lap one.

Bleekemolen was fourth after overtaking Jani, who finished fifth, while Richard Lyons finished in the final points-paying position for Ireland in sixth.