Touring car star Mattias Ekstrom upstaged Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher to win the Race of Champions in Beijing's Olympic stadium on Wednesday.
The double DTM champion won both the first two heats of the final to clinch victory without the need for a tiebreaking third heat.
Ekstrom has now matched rally king Sebastien Loeb’s record of three individual RoC titles, having beaten Schumacher in the final at Wembley in 2007 and defeated Loeb in Paris’s Stade de France the previous year.
Schumacher had won his third consecutive Nations Cup with German team-mate Sebastian Vettel on Tuesday but was chasing his first victory in the main drivers’ head-to-head competition.
He advanced easily through the knockout stages, dispatching Vettel in the semi-final, and made a strong start in the first heat of the final.
But Ekstrom clawed back lost ground with a remarkable final lap to pip Schumacher by 0.2s, and then took a narrow but convincing win in the second heat to settle the contest.
“I have to say it’s a very special day for me, because I had no luck in my DTM season so to end the season on a high, beating Michael Schumacher in the final, is really, really nice,” said the 31-year-old Swede.
“I look across at Michael on the start line and I think 'why should I beat him?' His driving his spotless.
"A tenth of a second here and there isn't a lot but sometimes it is enough and driving against Michael is always a pleasure."
Schumacher magnanimously conceded that Ekstrom had simply been too fast to beat on the day.
“There’s no reason to be disappointed,” said the seven-time F1 champion.
“I made it all the way to the final, had a hard fight against a lot of good guys, and you have to accept that there was one who was better today, and that was Mattias.
"It has been a nice event, all in all, as always. It has the right mixture of seriousness behind the wheel and a relaxed atmosphere in which to meet some good guys.”
Vettel made an ignominious exit from his semi-final when he crashed his KTM X-Bow into the barriers while trying to keep pace with Schumacher.
“In the first corner I thought I could make it stick in third [gear] and lost the rear at the second apex,” explained the Red Bull ace sheepishly.
“It’s quite a heavy car and if you get counter-movement it can surprise you. So I hit the wall and obviously had damaged the right-front wheel and the rim broke.
“I think the first lap was [neck-and-neck], so it would have been nice to see how it would have turned out on the second one, but the old guy [Schumacher] did it again!”
World champion Jenson Button fell to Ekstrom in the other semi-final, while Vettel had previously edged out his Red Bull colleague David Coulthard at the quarter-final stage.
See also:
Schu, Vettel sweep to RoC hat-trick