03/12/2011
NEWS STORY
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Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel have secured their fifth consecutive ROC Nations Cup title for Team Germany.
Legends from all aspects of motorsport did battle for national pride in the ROC Nations Cup behind the wheel of vehicles including the Audi R8 LMS, Skoda Fabia Super 2000 and KTM X-Bow, on a purpose-built parallel track at the ESPRIT arena in Dusseldorf.
After a thrilling contest, Schumacher and Vettel prevailed in the final against Team Nordic's Tom Kristensen and Juho Hanninen. The result means Team Germany extended their record of ROC Nations Cup titles to five.
But the two F1 world champions didn't have things all their own way. Indeed, Team Germany only just made it past Team Great Britain (Jenson Button and Andy Priaulx) in the semi-finals after Button - who beat Schumacher in the first heat - spun out of the best-of-three decider against Vettel.
After the eventual victory a delighted Schumacher said: "It's always a pleasure for us to be here - and especially to win it. Sebastian and I are good mates and we work well with each other and help each other. In the end it worked out right for us. Unlike him, this is one of the few wins I've had this year - apart from a few in karts. There are so many great drivers here and we are all good in our own area. So this is just a nice competition and the social moments that we get to spend together behind the scenes are very special."
"It's special to win five in a row," added Vettel. "This is a difficult event and a lot of things have to come together. You jump into different cars and it's easy to lose it so you have to push yourself to the limit. Winning at home makes up for the Nurburgring, which wasn't my best race of the F1 season! I enjoyed tonight. The fans were incredible, giving us a boost when we came into the stadium and when we crossed the line. In fact the atmosphere felt much better than last year so I hope we can carry this through to tomorrow."
"We've been on the verge for the last three years and it just hasn't come together," said Jenson Button. "I had two races against Michael Schumacher in the World Touring Racecar and there was a tenth between us on both occasions with one win each. But again the decider got away from us in the semi-final."
Team Nordic defeated Team France (Sebastien Ogier and Romain Grosjean) by two heats to nil in the first semi-final.
"It was a good evening for us," said Kristensen. "I'm not German but I still had good support from the crowd when we won. It was nice to drive all these different cars, and they all gave me a good feeling, especially the Audi. But I'm really impressed with my young team-mate. He was a bit nervous to start with but I told him to just go out there and enjoy it. And he produced a really mature and impressive performance to win in the semi-final. His heart rate hasn't been above 90bpm all day so I'm wondering what it is when he sleeps! Overall it was a great result to be on the podium."
Earlier in the evening, Team Nordic and Team France progressed through the round-robin Group A with four wins apiece to line up a best-of-three semi-final. Ogier and Kristensen both impressed with three wins out of three.
SAT1 Team Germany 2 (Timo Glock and Timo Scheider) missed out on a semi-final spot by just one point after taking three wins - two for Glock, one for Scheider. Team USA (Travis Pastrana and Brian Deegan) were eliminated with just Pastrana's victory over Scheider to show for their efforts.
In the other group, Team Great Britain (Jenson Button and Andy Priaulx) defeated Team Germany (Sebastian Vettel & Michael Schumacher) by five wins to four after an amazing battle. Michael Schumacher suffered a surprise defeat to Vitaly Petrov in his first race of the night, but he made up for it by winning his other two heats including a tight win over Button. Then Priaulx briefly silenced the Dusseldorf crowd by beating Vettel in the final heat.
Team All Stars (David Coulthard and Filipe Albuquerque) were eliminated without any wins while Team Slavic (Vitaly Petrov and Jan Kopecky) also failed to progress despite Petrov's fine wins over Schumacher and Coulthard.
But in the end the majority of the 33,968-strong crowd were sent home happy by Team Germany's win.