Race of Champions Won by Ekstrom

Former DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom won the Race of Champions for the third time by beating seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher in a mind-blowing final at Beijing’s Birds Nest stadium. The Swede shot the first bullet by wining the first race of the “best three” in the RoC cars, after which he gave a real performance in the KTM X-bow, putting Schumacher on the second place of the competition.

"It's a very special day for me, because I had a year with not much luck," said Ekstrom. "So to end it by beating Michael Schumacher in this is fantastic."

The result was not as surprising as you might think, as Ekstrom had a great evening and won every single race, including the one with Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen and new F1 champion Jenson Button in the knock-out stages.

Schumacher, on the other hand, had problems keeping things in order, as he had to face Ford WRC star Mikko Hirvonen in the X-bows to set up a semi-final against Red Bull F1 driver Sebastian Vettel. Just before the finish line of the semifinal, the two Germans were separated by inches, but Vettel took a wrong turn and crashed his X-bow.

The group stages did not offer any thrills. Yvan Muller and Marcus Gronholm were not able to advance to the higher stage in a group where they ran against Schumacher and Coulthard.

The evening provided some spectacular accidents as Guerlain Chicherit crashed a Solution-F tin-top for the second day and former 500cc motorcycle king Mick Doohan broke the front suspension on his KTM X-bow against the concrete barrier.