Beijing's Martin dominates at Brands

Martinez jumped ahead at the green light, but Martin, who was a little slow to react and felt the Spaniard had gone before the reds went out, was not to be denied. He swerved across behind Martinez and lunged down his inside under braking for Paddock.

The leaders came perilously close to making contact on the exit of the corner, but Martin clung to the inside line to grab the lead. Behind them, Andy Soucek (Sporting Lisbon) was third across the startline, but Craig Dolby (Tottenham) zoomed around the outside of him at Paddock to take third, with his title rival Yelmer Buurman (AC Milan) running fifth, ahead of a fast-starting Tristan Gommendy (Galatasaray).

Martin pulled out a three-second lead before the pitstops, which did little to shake-up the order among the frontrunners, although Gommendy lost 20s when he knocked down one of his pit crew.

On lap 23, Martinez made a mistake at Paddock, slid wide into the gravel and gifted second place to Dolby, who had charged up behind him on new tyres after his stop. Soucek and Buurman then cruised up to Martinez's tail, but neither could make a move stick on the other.

In the end, Martinez's car gave up the ghost with three laps to go on the exit of Paddock, promoting Soucek to his first podium in just two race weekends back in the series.

Buurman's fourth place meant he lost the points lead back to Dolby by one point, while a late-stopping strategy paid off for Franck Montagny, who finished fifth for Bordeaux, ahead of Basel's Max Wissel.

Martin won by over 5s, having expertly managed the gap back to Dolby for the remainder of the race. Dolby was struggling in the closing laps due to his Zolder wrist injury and was also baulked by tail-ender Maria de Villota.

Pos  Driver               Team                     Time/Gap
 1.  John Martin          Beijing Guoan          45m20.096s
 2.  Craig Dolby          Tottenham Hotspur        + 7.438s
 3.  Andy Soucek          Sporting Clube          + 14.766s
 4.  Yelmer Buurman       AC Milan                + 15.706s
 5.  Franck Montagny      Girondins de Bordeaux   + 17.256s
 6.  Max Wissel           FC Basel                + 42.073s
 7.  Chris van der Drift  Olympiacos              + 53.117s
 8.  Tristan Gommendy     Galatasaray             + 53.881s
 9.  Duncan Tappy         Flamengo                + 57.014s
10.  James Walker         Liverpool FC            + 57.671s
11.  Alvaro Parente       FC Porto                + 58.883s
12.  Franck Perera        Olympique Lyonnais      + 59.546s
13.  Davide Rigon         RSC Anderlecht            + 1 lap
14.  Maria de Villota     Atletico de Madrid        + 1 lap
15.  Robert Doornbos      Corinthians               + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Marcos Martinez      Sevilla FC             33 laps
     Julien Jousse        AS Roma                33 laps
     Narain Karthikeyan   PSV Eindhoven          5 laps