Mattias Ekstrom beat three-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb on Saturday to win the Race of Champions at Stade de France.
Loeb raced for the first time since breaking his arm in September and reached the final for the third straight year. The Frenchman won last year and lost to Finland's Heikki Kovalainen in 2004.
"It's great to beat the best driver in the world," DTM racer Ekstrom said.
PHOTO: AFP
The Swede downed Citroen driver Loeb 2-0 in a best-of-three legs final after overcoming Formula One's Kovalainen and three-time ChampCar winner Sebastien Bourdais in earlier heats.
Loeb said he felt no lingering pain from his injury.
"It feels fine, no problems," Loeb said. "I had not raced for three months, so it's nice to come back."
Ekstrom, who also competes in some rally driving, edged the first leg by a car-length after a poor start, and dominated the second by nearly 3 seconds.
The Race of Champions, a yearly event since 1988, featured 16 drivers from various motor racing disciplines, and was held on a custom built 1.2km figure-of-eight asphalt track with a crossover bridge.
In elimination rounds under heavy rain, competitors were split into two groups of eight -- the Rally Group and the Racing Group -- and drove cars ranging from an Aston Martin V8 GT Rally, a Porsche RSR GT3 and a Renault Megane Trophy.
Loeb beat X-Games racer Travis Pastrana of the US in the quarter-finals and Britain's Colin McRae in the semis.
Pastrana was the only American competing after F1 driver Scott Speed's withdrawal on Friday followed by that of NASCAR stock-car champion Jimmie Johnson -- who broke his wrist last weekend in a fall from a golf cart.
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