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Bad luck for Scheckter at A1

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SA racer Tomas Scheckter had a disappointing first A1 Grand Prix race at EuroSpeedway in Germany when trouble struck his car.

Scheckter made a good start from 12th position on the grid for the feature race after a satisfying performance in sprint race. He managed to finish 12th in the sprint race after a 23rd starting position.

The IndyCar star and son of former F1 champion Jodie Scheckter kicked off the feature race in good form and was up to 10th position in the early laps when he had to pit to repair a broken battery cable.

Team South Africa sent him out again despite Scheckter losing several laps in the pits. Scheckter used the remaining laps - he completed a total of 15 and finished 20 laps behind the winner - to test the car.

France, with Nicolas Lapierre at the wheel, dominated the feature race after starting from pole position and taking the lead from a fast-starting Switzerland (Neel Jani) on lap four.

Lapierre, a leading GP2 driver like Jani and Nelson Angelo Piquet who won the opening race of the new A1 Grand Prix series at Brands Hatch last month, finished 3.70 sec ahead of Great Britain's Robbie Kerr.

Kerr, who started from the back of the grid after failing to finish the sprint race, was 1.75 sec ahead of Canada's Sean McIntosh. New Zealand (Jonny Reid), Switzerland (Jani) and Ireland (ex-F1 driver Ralph Firman) made up the top six.

Other high-profile casualties were USA's Scott Speed (who only completed four laps before going out with mechanical problems) and Brazil's Piquet (who only completed 26 laps after a drive-through penalty and spinning off the circuit into retirement after a clash with Japan's Hideki Noda).

Result:

1 France 58m 45.7s; 2 Great Britain +3.70s; 3 Canada +5.45; 4 New Zealand +5.97; 5 Switzerland +7.07; 6 Ireland +8.08; 7 Netherlands +9.62; 8 Indonesia +16.70; 9 Japan +19.34; 10 Germany +21.86; 11 Portugal; 12 Pakistan; 13 Mexico; 14 Australia; 15 Austria; 16 Malaysia; 17 China; 18 Lebanon (33 laps); 19 Czech Republic (27 laps); 20 Brazil (26 laps); 21 India (19 laps); 22 South Africa (15 laps); 23 Italy (11 laps); 24 USA (4 laps).

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