There was worse still, though, for Canada's James Hinchcliffe, who suffered both a stop-go penalty and then a drive-through for speeding during his stop-go. Carroll's determination to separate Karthikeyan from second place was destined to end in tears, however, as after a number of wheel-to-wheel tussles his front wing became detached as a result of a slight brush with the Indian machine, causing the Ulsterman to fall back into the clutches of fourth-placed Ammermuller and the duelling Montagny and Jani, the latter having lost out during the opening round of stops.

On lap 18 the wing on the emerald green car then dramatically flew off, sending Carroll gravel-bound not once but twice on his way back to the pits for repairs, with the man from Portadown doing very well indeed by keeping his foot in to extricate himself from the Clark Curve kitty litter as he slewed back across to the pit-lane with a punctured tyre and missing front wing.

Nonetheless, though he may have returned to the fray down in 18th place, a full 54 seconds down on the race leader, that was still ahead of the hapless Hinchcliffe, who picked up yet another drive-through penalty for speeding whilst serving his first drive-through. Similarly out of luck – and , it would seem, pace – was Reid, still languishing outside the top ten and battling with Malaysia's Fairuz Fauzy and Salaquarda.

As the second round of stops approached at speed, CongFu Cheng had latched onto the back of France and Switzerland in the battle over fourth place, whilst up front Kerr – though never more than about a second to the good – seemed to have matters all under control once more, able to provide an answer to everything Karthikeyan had to throw at him.

Carroll, meanwhile, was going to show what might have been by regularly lapping up to eight tenths of a second faster than anyone else on the circuit, whilst with 16 laps left to run Kerr had stretched his advantage out to 1.6 seconds. All three of the leading trio came in en masse at the end of lap 33, with a quicker stop enabling Karthikeyan to regain the top spot. If Kerr wanted to do the double this weekend, he would have to do his overtaking on the track.

Jani was in for Switzerland next time around, whilst Salaquarda required a push-start when he followed suit shortly afterwards. The flurry of stops promoted Cheng into the lead ahead of sprint race runner-up Jonathan Summerton – curiously anonymous in the light of his earlier exploits – though a long pit-stop for the latter would dash his points' chances.

Fastest lap for Cheng was immediately blown out of the water by a supreme effort from Karthikeyan, beginning to stretch his legs out front, whilst Jani had regained track position over Montagny. With just over a 21-second margin, the big question now was just where Cheng would feed back in again following his second stop. When he finally did come in, such was his enthusiasm the Chinese ace almost missed the pit entrance, and the former British F3 ace rejoined the fray fifth – between Switzerland and France – with ten laps remaining.

As things stood – with others' misfortunes having elevated New Zealand to eighth – Great Britain was set to again agonisingly miss out on the runner-up spot in the nations' standings, and Ammermuller losing third place with a left rear puncture plunging him into the Druids gravel trap on lap 40 only served to solidify that status quo.

With eight laps to go, however, Kerr was suddenly all over the back of his quarry, after Karthikeyan made an error and ran slightly wide and off the track in Sheene Curve, whilst further back Filip Albuquerque attempted a supremely brave move around the outside of Reid at Hawthorns, not quite making it stick despite putting two wheels on the grass. The young Portguese ace did pull it off shortly afterwards – again around the outside – but with Kerr 1.8 seconds adrift of Karthikeyan with only two tours remaining, eighth place for Reid was still enough.

Cheng was also doing all he could to deprive new champion Jani of third place in the dying stages. Whilst Jani would hold on – to take third place behind Karthikeyan and Kerr and ahead of Cheng and Montagny in an ultimately lonely fifth – Albuquerque had now turned his attentions to Bleekemolen's sixth place, but despite a late charge the Dutchman held on by the narrowest of margins at the chequered flag.