Germany beat England at Wembley as Michael Schumacher and Sebastien Vettel won motorsport's end of year Race of Champions Nations Cup charity event.
LONDON: Germany beat England at Wembley on Sunday as Michael Schumacher and Sebastien Vettel won motorsport's end of year Race of Champions Nations Cup charity event.
Formula One's retired seven-times world champion and rookie Vettel saw off Finland's Heikki Kovalainen and Marcus Gronholm in the team final.
The German duo had brushed aside England's Jenson Button and Andy Priaulx, the Guernsey-born World Touring Car champion, in the semi-finals.
The main individual competition to be Champion of Champions, pitting the likes of Schumacher, NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and ChampCar''s Sebastien Bourdais in head-to-head heats in a range of identical cars, followed later.
Schumacher had Vettel to thank for saving his blushes in the final race of the team event after the Ferrari great stalled at the start of his heat against new McLaren signing Kovalainen and was overtaken.
Vettel, who made his Formula One debut as a stand-in with BMW Sauber this year before switching to Toro Rosso, beat former Renault driver Kovalainen in the decider after also trouncing former world rally champion Gronholm.
The home of English soccer, where England beat Germany in the 1966 World Cup final at the old stadium, was transformed into a mini 1km motor racing circuit for the night.
Asphalt covered most of the turf, with some of the pitch markings still visible on the infield, and the ear-splitting wail of Formula One cars filled the stadium with David Coulthard and Vettel doing low speed tyre-smoking demonstrations.
"There weren't any balls or any goals so maybe it was a little bit easier for us to win at Wembley today," said Schumacher.
Race of Champions organisers paid tribute to the late world rally champion Colin McRae, who died with his young son in a helicopter crash at his home in Scotland last September.
His brother Alister, taking part in the event, drove McRae's championship winning Subaru into the arena after a lone bagpiper had played.
"He lived his life at a million miles an hour and I know he would have been very proud to see the depth of respect for his achievements," said Coulthard. "I was very proud to know him."
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