The 17th car made an appearance in the closing stages of the race as Brazil came out for the final laps due to the repairs taking so long after the Sprint race crash.

As the time ran out the cars were released to take the chequered flag with A1 Team France taking its first victory since last February in Australia. Malaysia and New Zealand completed the podium with Malaysia and France joint championship leaders.

A1 Teams Korea and Monaco both scored on their debut, much to the delight of both teams and Daniel Morad scored the first-ever points for A1 Team Lebanon despite not finishing the race.

France's Loïc Duval said: "The weekend was really difficult, we received the car yesterday morning and we were in the car for the first time during qualifying so everything was brand new and today it was a really, really tough race. It was hard with the safety car but at the end everything went well and the mechanics did a great job."

Malaysia's Fairuz Fauzy said of his two podium results: "It's been a dream start to the season for A1 Team Malaysia. We were certainly hoping to have a good performance here, and two podiums are just great. The weather conditions were treacherous today, which made it difficult for all of us, but that makes it all the more rewarding. There is something extra special when you are driving for your nation, so I'm very proud of our achievements today. It's been a real team effort and I'm delighted that we are leaving Zandvoort leading the championship."

New Zealand's 18-year-old Earl Bamber commented on his fantastic weekend: "It was always going to be a tough weekend. There is a lot more horsepower from the Powered by Ferrari car and I think it's just been a challenge for all the drivers to get around and finish the Feature race. It's been a fantastic weekend for me though, the team did a great job all weekend with the car, and we still managed to hold third position after a mishap with the wheel nut. It was a little bit slow to come off in the pit stop but the guys handled it well and we got back out and still finished on the podium."

"We had a lot of power boosts left in the bag just in case the Safety Car came out later on and we could challenge for second place," he added. "But we ran out of time on the clock unfortunately so that's the way it goes, we will live to fight another day."

The very final words on what has been a hard but rewarding first weekend of Season Four for the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport came from the Chairman, Tony Teixeira: "I have always loved the Dutch and I do so even more after this weekend. We had our dramas getting here, but I never doubted we would make it and want to say a big thank you to everyone who made this possible."

"The weather was dreadful, but this did not stop the fans coming to see the races in their tens of thousands with the patriotic orange clearly visible in the packed grandstands," Teixeira remarked. "All the teams have been working day and night to put on the show and they did us proud today."

Zandvoort - Feature race results:

Pos Driver              A1 Team      Laps  Time       Gap
1.  Loïc Duval          France       36    11:58.723  -
2.  Fairuz Fauzy        Malaysia     36    12:01.011  +2.288
3.  Earl Bamber         New Zealand  36    12:01.432  +2.709
4.  John Martin         Australia    36    12:05.052  +6.329
5.  Jeroen Bleekemolen  Netherlands  36    12:06.996  +8.273
6.  Clivio Piccione     Monaco       34    12:03.356  +2 Laps
7.  Jin Woo Hwang       Korea        33    12:28.432  +3 Laps
8.  Daniel Morad        Lebanon      32    03:15.216  +4 Laps
9.  Ho Pin Tung         China        31    03:14.803  +5 Laps
10. Charlie Kimball     USA          30    59:04.806  +6 Laps
11. Filipe Albuquerque  Portugal     15    29:34.235  +21 Laps
12. Satrio Hermanto     Indonesia    12    26:14.548  +24 Laps
13. Adrian Zaugg        South Africa  5    11:00.955  +31 Laps
14. Fabio Onidi         Italy         5    11:01.706  +31 Laps
15. Felipe Guimaraes    Brazil        5    12:03.879  +31 Laps
16. Adam Carroll        Ireland       4    09:17.297  +32 Laps
17. Neel Jani           Switzerland   4    09:52.638  +32 Laps

Fastest lap: A1 Team USA set the fastest lap (1m47.115s) of the Feature race with a speed of 155.5 kph on lap 30.

2008/09 A1GP points standings:

Pos A1 Team      Points
1.  Malaysia     22
2.  France       22
3.  New Zealand  18
4.  Netherlands  11
5.  Australia     8
6.  Monaco        5
7.  Switzerland   4
8.  Korea         4
9.  South Africa  3
10. USA           3
10. Lebanon       3
12. Italy         2
13. China	         2

Next race: A1GP Chengdu, China, 7-9 November 2008.

D.B. © CAPSIS International