Scandinavia wins Nations Cup

The hybrid Swede-Danish pairing of Mattias Ekstrom and Tom Kristensen had to pre-qualify for the competition, but worked their way through the knock-out stages to win the best of five race superfinal over PlayStation France comprehensively by three races to nil.

The win was thanks largely to Tom Kristensen, who won both of his races against Champ Car titleholder Sebastien Bourdais. Bourdais had been extremely impressive in his early rounds, but lost out to Kristensen in their Porsches and Megane races by inches.

Bourdais had looked as if he would keep the French fight going in the Megane race by just shading Kristensen at the halfway point, however the seven-time 24 Hours winner won through.

Mattias Ekstrom, despite winning the DTM title in 2004, was classed as the team's 'rallier' thanks to his WRC outings. He beat Dakar winner Stephane Peterhansel by some distance in the Xsara WRC battle after Peterhansel scraped the outside wall on the wide lane of Turn One.

Colin McRae and David Coulthard's Autosport Great Britain team were eliminated at the semi-final stage by PlayStation France after Coulthard was edged in two thrilling encounters by Bourdais.

Just inches decided both, however Coulthard nudging the wall twice in buggy decider didn't help his cause. Stephane Peterhansel set up that deciding race after stalling at the start of his duel with McRae in the WRC Citroen Xsaras.

The American team of NASCAR star Jeff Gordon and motorbike king Travis Pastrana did well to make it to the semi-final after knocking out Brazil in the first round, thanks to Gordon's double win over GP2 race-winner Nelson Piquet Jr.

However, the challenge fell apart when they faced Scandinavia. Gordon threw away a mid-race lead over Kristensen to be beaten by inches at the flag, and then Pastrana stalled at the green light in his Xsara race with Ekstrom. Pastrana then added insult to injury, by painfully scraping the concrete outside wall as he tried to catch up.

The unsponsored French team of crowd favourites Sebastien Loeb and Stephane Peterhansel went out in the first round to the PlayStation French team after two superb performances from Bourdais.

In Bourdais's first race he came back from a massive understeer in his Porsche at the first hairpin and was behind Jean Alesi at the halfway point, however pulled it back to take victory, which he then followed up in the buggies duel.

Last year's individual Race of Champions winner Heikki Kovalainen blotted his copy book in his first race, by spinning the Megane Trophy racer twice at the course's second tight hairpin. This handed Tom Kristensen's Scandinavian team an easy victory which fellow DTM racer Mattias Ekstrom followed up with a comfortable buggies win over Marcus Gronholm.

The German and the Benelux teams were also early casualties thanks to 2-0 comprehensive victories from Britain and Scandinavia respectively.

Preliminary round:

Scandinavia 2 v Benelux 0

Quarter-finals:

France 1 v PlayStation France 2
Autosport Great Britain 2 v Germany 0

Brazil 1 v USA 2

Finland 0 v Scandinavia 2

Semi-finals:

PlayStation France 2 v Autosport Great Britain 1

USA 0 v Scandinavia 2

Final:

Scandinavia 3 v PlayStation France 0