Narain Karthikeyan secured India's second World Cup of Motorsport triumph in the feature race at Brands Hatch, in the process denying Robbie Kerr a dream double for the second year in succession and seeing Great Britain once again fall just one point short of overhauling New Zealand for the runner-up spot in the final title chase.
Newly-crowned A1GP champion Neel Jani came home third – celebrating his earlier success in fine style – and both he and Kerr brought the curtain down on the nation vs nation series' third campaign by performing donuts for the crowd after the chequered flag had fallen. With the Swiss ace achieving his promised aim of breaking his driveshaft in the process, he was given a lift back to the pits by his British rival, conjuring up memories of Jean Alesi and Michael Schumacher at Montreal in 1995, or Ayrton Senna and fellow Brands Hatch hero Nigel Mansell at Silverstone four years earlier still.
As the action had got underway, Karthikeyan held onto his pole advantage when the lights went out, as Kerr slotted neatly into second behind and Adam Carroll repeated his lightning getaway from the earlier sprint outing to charge past Jani for third place before the drivers had reached Paddock Hill Bend.
A racy-looking Kerr then attempted to go all the way around the outside of Karthikeyan at Graham Hill Bend, but as the Indian ran him wide the sprint race-winner found himself under close interrogation from Carroll, who similarly had a look for second place heading down Cooper Straight.
The top three continued to go at it hammer-and-tongs around the remainder of the opening lap, with absolutely nothing to choose between them, whilst Jani, Michael Ammermuller in the German car and Frenchman Franck Montagny completed the top six. As things settled down a little, Karthikeyan held an advantage of some six tenths of a second as the cars flashed across the line for the first time, with the Czech Republic's Filip Salaquarda adding to New Zealand's misery by passing Jonny Reid for 15th place, taking Indonesian Satrio Hermanto with him for good measure and putting the Kiwis' runner-up spot in the nations' standings under serious threat.
Brazil's Xandi Negrao then went off-piste and dropped some way down the order, but there was further drama as he and Khalil Beschir (Lebanon) came together, with the former losing his nose cone in the contre-temps and the latter spinning and subsequently stalling. There was even heavier damage for Adam Khan, whose Pakistani entry engaged in an expensive wheel-banging session with the Australian machine of John Martin. Both were forced into immediate retirement, with the Pakistani car having been sent into the barriers at high-speed and Khan lucky to emerge unscathed.
As if the action at the front wasn't already close enough, that incident brought out the appearance of the safety car to clear Khan's heavily-damaged machine away from the track. When the race got going again at the end of lap eight, Karthikeyan timed the re-start absolutely to perfection, whilst further back Jeroen Bleekemolen aggressively put a move on Adrian Zaugg for seventh place.
Karthikeyan and Carroll chose to make their tyre stops as soon as the first pit window opened on lap eight, with the latter very nearly getting the jump on the erstwhile race leader. That promoted Kerr to the head of the field ahead of Jani, whilst Carroll attempted to go all the way around the outside of the Indian machine on his 'out' lap. Kerr and Jani were in next time around, and the crowd went wild as the Briton rejoined just ahead of Karthikeyan to assume the race lead.
Carroll was still harassing the Indian for all he was worth for second place, whilst Zaugg regained the position he had lost to Bleekemolen earlier on – despite leaving the pit-lane with the jack still attached to the back of his car – but a drive-through penalty would subsequently render that benefit somewhat academic.
