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.
![Narain Karthikeyan - A1 Team India [pic credit: A1 GP Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/398970.jpg)
