As the rain continued to fall, Malaysia were flying, re-taking third from Switzerland before passing local hero Bleekemolen for second. Fauzy then set about closing the gap to New Zealand who was still in the lead. France moved up to fourth as Loic Duval took advantage of a mistake from Switzerland.

At the start of lap nine the order at the front was now New Zealand, Malaysia, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, China, South Africa and Italy.

Fauzy, whose car was working really well in the wet conditions, was right on the gearbox of Bamber and on lap nine made his move, snatching the lead through turn eleven. Meanwhile, France stole the final podium position from Netherlands.

China's tremendous charge came to an end on lap ten when the back end got away from Ho Pin Tung and he spun coming out of the final corner, crashing out of fifth. With Brazil also crashing the red flag was brought out, taking the final race classification back to the end of lap 10.

Race winner A1 Team Malaysia's Fairuz Fauzy said: "I am so happy to take this win. It was very difficult on the track today and made even more challenging with the lack of experience we have with this new car, but we have worked really hard as a team and now we have a fantastic win. We start from pole position for the next race as well, so I hope we can have more success, but if the weather stays like this it will be another huge challenge for everyone. I'm looking forward to it!"

A1 Team New Zealand's Earl Bamber said: "Its pretty atrocious conditions this morning. We got a good start and then managed to get past the Netherlands. He (Bleekemolen) got on some oil which made him have a slow exit so I got down the outside into the chicane and then as he out-braked himself he ran wide and I managed to get in front. It was a good pass, but pretty close. We held the lead for quite a while but then Fairuz was just a little bit quicker and got past me on the infield. I think second is good and hopefully we can make some changes for this afternoon and see what happens with the weather."

Third-placed Loic Duval driving for A1 Team France said: "It's very difficult to see anything but I'm really happy. We received the car yesterday, but just ran in the qualifying session so to finish on the podium today its great for us. Everything is possible for this afternoon so I am confident now. We lost a lot of laps yesterday morning, so this morning we had the chance for an extra test. We managed to work on the car and I think it's been quite fair with the amount of laps everybody has had."

Jeroen Bleekmolen was disappointed not to be on the podium in front of his home crowd: "When you start from pole you want to win the race, so it didn't go to plan. The first few laps were alright but then I lost a lot of grip and people passed me on the outside, inside and everywhere so we need to find more grip and hopefully we can do better the second race. It's really great to see the fans and even with this weather they are still here enjoying it so I hope I can give them a good result this afternoon."

With this afternoon's Feature race grid determined by the Sprint finishing order, Malaysia is in pole position to aim for a double victory in the opening weekend of the new season.

Zandvoort - Sprint race results:

Pos Driver              A1 Team       Laps  Time       Gap
1.  Fairuz Fauzy        Malaysia      10    19:44.533  -
2.  Earl Bamber         New Zealand   10    19:48.007  +3.474
3.  Loic Duval          France        10    19:50.803  +6.27
4.  Jeroen Bleekemolen  Netherlands   10    19:57.966  +13.433
5.  Neel Jani           Switzerland   10    20:01.429  +16.896
6.  Adrian Zaugg        South Africa  10    20:05.458  +20.925
7.  Fabio Onidi         Italy         10    20:06.747  +22.214
8.  Charlie Kimball     USA           10    20:08.683  +24.15
9.  Filipe Albuquerque  Portugal      10    20:13.960  +29.427
10. Daniel Morad        Lebanon       10    20:23.462  +38.929
11. John Martin         Australia      9    21:12.004  +1:27.471
12. Ho Pin Tung         China          9    18:09.652  +1 Lap
13. Felipe Guimaraes    Brazil         9    19:24.409  +1 Lap
14. Jin Woo Hwang       Korea          3    07:27.249  +7 Laps
15. Satrio Hermanto     Indonesia      2    05:27.400  +8 Laps
16. Adam Carroll        Ireland        2    05:58.094  +8 Laps
17. Clivio Piccione     Monaco         1    02:48.422  +9 Laps

Fastest lap: A1 Team France set the fastest lap (1m45.939s) of the Sprint race with a speed of 157.2 kph on lap six.

2008/09 A1GP points standings:

Pos A1 Team      Points
1.  Malaysia     10
2.  New Zealand   8
3.  France        7
4.  Netherlands   5
5.  Switzerland   4
6.  South Africa  3
7.  Italy         2
8.  USA           1

D.B. © CAPSIS International