Kristensen wins for Audi

Kristensen made a perfect start from pole position and stayed in control throughout to win by 3.4 seconds, ahead of Mercedes drivers Bruno Spengler and Jamie Green. Heinz-Harald Frentzen was fourth for Audi, holding off double 2006 winner Bernd Schneider (Mercedes), who did well to recover to fifth after a terrible start had dropped him to ninth.

Kristensen's only worry came on his second stint, when he was held up by the battling Mercedes of Stefan Mucke and Daniel la Rosa. They completely negated his 3.4 second lead over Spengler, and meant the lead duo would pit nose-to-tail for their second and final stop.

Although Spengler had the quicker service, Kristensen just rejoined ahead of him, and once free of traffic he pulled well clear once again. Green finished close behind Spengler in third, but well clear of Frentzen, Schneider and the Red Bull Audis of Martin Tomczyk and Mattias Ekstrom, who swapped places to see if either could pass those in front, but they couldn't.

Jean Alesi scored the final point when he produced a great move to pass a very subdued Mika Hakkinen, whose Mercedes appeared to lose pace as the race progressed.

The hard luck story of the race was Alexandros Margaritis, who drove a brilliant first stint in his year-old Mercedes that elevated him to a genuine fourth, only for his car to develop a terminal handling defect just five laps from the finish, forcing him to retire.

Kristensen now leads Schneider by two points in the championship, with Spengler moving up to third ahead of Green and Hakkinen.

Result:

Pos  Driver                 Make              Time
 1.  Tom Kristensen         Audi      1h 01:29.257
 2.  Bruno Spengler         Mercedes    +    3.499
 3.  Jamie Green            Mercedes    +    4.868
 4.  Heinz-Harald Frentzen  Audi        +   24.622
 5.  Bernd Schneider        Mercedes    +   24.992
 6.  Martin Tomczyk         Audi        +   27.360
 7.  Mattias Ekstrom        Audi        +   27.728
 8.  Jean Alesi             Mercedes    +   30.644
 9.  Mika Hakkinen          Mercedes    +   34.865
10.  Pierre Kaffer          Audi        +   35.170
11.  Daniel la Rosa         Mercedes    +   44.282
12.  Stefan Mucke           Mercedes    +   44.850
13.  Frank Stippler         Audi        +   50.995
14.  Timo Scheider          Audi        +   58.510
15.  Susie Stoddart         Mercedes    + 1:05.187
16.  Mathias Lauda          Mercedes    + 1:09.113
17.  Christian Abt          Audi        +    1 lap
18.  Vanina Ickx            Audi        +    1 lap
19.  Olivier Tielemans      Audi        +    1 lap
20.  Alexandros Margaritis  Mercedes    +   2 laps