In one of the best day’s racing in the five-year history of A1GP on a brand new circuit destined to be a great one, Switzerland’s Neel Jani became the winningest A1GP driver when he took his 10th victory in Sunday’s Feature race at Portimao in the Portuguese Algarve on Sunday afternoon.

In the process, Jani recorded his fourth win of the season, back-to-back Feature race successes for Switzerland following the team’s victory at Kyalami in South Africa in February, and put Switzerland back on top of the championship standings with four races remaining.

Ireland (Adam Carroll) finished a fighting second in the Feature race, but will have to wait for a ruling regarding a drive-through penalty handed down for overtaking behind the safety car that was deferred until after the race. Third was home favourite Filipe Albuquerque, who also finished third in Sunday morning’s Sprint race.

It was the first international car race meeting at the 4,69-km Autodromo Internacional do Algarve, which saw a dominant A1 Team Netherlands (Robert Doornbos) take the Sprint race victory ahead of Ireland’s Carroll and Portugal’s Albuquerque.

For South Africa and 21-year-old Adrian Zaugg, it was a desperately unlucky weekend. After qualifying eighth for the Sprint race and fourth for the Feature event – the team’s best qualifying result this season – Zaugg was forced to start the shorter race at the back of the 20-car grid after his engine cut out on the grid. The team managed to restart it, but only after the rest of the cars had got away.

He was then involved in two incidents, neither of which was of his making. In the first he was slowed by a puncture and had to pit to replace the flat wheel, losing two laps. Then, three laps from the end of the race, he was taken out by Brazil’s Felipe Guimaraes, who crashed into him from behind.

The Feature race started promisingly, with Zaugg into third place at the end of the first lap after pole sitter Doornbos dropped out on the formation lap with an electrical probelm that caused his car to catch fire and activate the extinguisher system. After an excellent first compulsory pit stop, the South African emerged in second place ahead of New Zealand’s Earl Bamber. The Kiwi, running on a set of new tyres while the South African’s team had opted to save their set of new tyres for the second compulsory pit stop, pressured Zaugg until Bamber suffered a bout of red mist and ran into the back of Zaugg on lap 15.

It was a disappointing end to a weekend that had promised so much. “After our good showing in Saturday’s qualifying, we were looking to add some much-needed points to our total and substantially improve our championship position. The team deserved better today, but that’s motor racing. Things don’t always go your way,” said a philosophical Mike Carroll, general manager of A1 Team South Africa.

Zaugg was equally disappointed. “We had such a good chance to do well today, but luck was not with us at all. I was enjoying the battle with Bamber, who was quicker than me on his new tyres, and I knew if I could finish that second stint well I’d be in a good position to race for a podium in the third and final stint on new tyres.”

With no points scored this weekend, South Africa remains 11th in the championship with 19 points and just two more rounds (at Brands Hatch in England on May 3 and Mexico City on May 24) remaining.