Andreas Zuber - and, for that matter, the entire Piquet Sports GP2 Series team - must dread waking up on the Sunday of grands prix weekends, after another disastrous sprint race appearance in Istanbul.

Having taken a podium finish in each of the two feature races staged so far, Zuber would have hoped to at least scored points in the corresponding sprint but, having helped take himself out of contention in Barcelona after a wheel-banging match with team-mate Pastor Maldonado, the Austrian found himself on the receiving end of Adrian Valles' unwanted attentions in Turkey.

While Zuber will know that he is not the luckiest man in GP2 after a run of mechanical problems last year, he would at least have hoped to avoid on-track incidents in 2008, but failed to get beyond the opening corner in a chaotic start at Istanbul Park.

"I arrived in Turkey with the memory of my points in the first race of the season in Barcelona, and memories of my victory for Trident Racing here in 2006 and finishing in the points last season," he reflected wistfully, "So I was really looking forward to my third race in Istanbul and, in the first short half an hour practice session, I was right up at the sharp end and finished second overall, just behind [Giorgio] Pantano.

"I managed to get myself onto the front row of the grid - it should have been pole, but second place was still good - and the goal for the first race was to just keep it clean and fight hard for the win and bring home plenty more points, which we did, even though I lost one place as [Romain] Grosjean passed me.

"So I started race two from sixth place on Sunday morning, but the race did not bring me the points I wished for. First, the anti-stall turned itself on much too early - and twice before the start. The engineers in the team need to check why that happened, because my team-mate encountered the same troubles.

"Then, at the start, Adrian Valles did not leave me any space and pushed me. He also had clutch problems, so I didn't stand a chance. I almost flew off at turn one and that was the end of my race.”

The non-finish dropped Zuber from second to fourth in the standings, but the Austrian could at least take encouragement from his Saturday showing.

“I had a moderate start and wanted to line up behind Pantano, but I had somewhat overlooked Grosjean in the mirrors," he admitted, "He took advantage of the free space and passed me on the inside. That was my fault.