France beats Australia to win RoC Nations Cup in Sydney

France defeated Team Australia Supercars in a tiebreaker to win the Race of Champions Nations Cup at Sydney’s Accor Stadium.

The win was France’s first since 2004, and game after a tense final that went down to the wire against one of the two home teams.

Brown defeated nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb in Polaris RZRs the first race of the best-of-three final, before Victor Martins defeated Brodie Kostecki – a late entrant in place of Jamie Whincup – by 1.1 seconds in the FC2 rallycross car to set up the decider in another pair of rallycross cars, the SuperCar Lites. Brown looked to have the upper-hand halfway through the third race in the final, but a mistake coming out of the final corner allowed Martins to edge ahead at the line by just 0.2s.

“It was just so much fun and incredible to win here on debut,” said Martins. “To win the ROC Nations Cup is pretty special and provides another chance to show my potential.

“I was obviously asking Seb for lots of tips and asked if it could be flat over the bridge and he said the car had the suspension to land it. I checked the draw for the ROC Champion of Champions tomorrow and if I was to come up against Seb it would not be until the final, so let’s hope I have the chance to race him tomorrow night.”

Loeb — a record four-time winner of the individual Race of Champions and part of France’s last Nations Cup-winning team alongside Jean Alesi — was impressed with his young teammate, who will be competing in his third Formula 2 campaign this season.

“I have obviously been speaking with Victor since the start and I think we made a good job together,” he said. “At the end of the day he was competing in his first Race of Champions and he was not expected to be fighting at the front. I think he impressed everyone.”

En route to the final, France defeated Team New Zealand in the Quarter Finals. Both Sharp and Martins hit walls during the first head-to-head, and it was the French driver who won on the road, but Sharp was handed the win after penalties were applied. France won the other race, leading to a decider between Loeb and Sharp, which was won by Loeb.

France then took on team All-Stars’ Chaz Mostert and Johan Kristoffersson, who’d nocked out defending champions Team Norway (Petter and Oliver Solberg). Mostert beat Martins in the first race, while Kristoffersson brought it level by defeating his former World Rallycross and Extreme E rival Loeb. Kristoffersson was on course to win the tie-breaker, by a moment at the final turn meant that Martins edged him at the finish.

Team Australia Supercars took a clean sweep in its group, with the other home team, represented by off-road stars Molly Taylor and Toby Price beating New Zealand’s Louis Sharp and Hayden Paddon in a tiebreaker for second.

Brown then survived a brush with the wall to defeat team USA’s Travis Pastrana in the Quarter Finals, while Kostecki came from behind to beat Kurt Busch in the second Quarter Final race to set up a battle with Germany’s Sebastian Vettel and Mick Schumacher, who’d bested Team Australia Off-Road to reach the semis.

Once again Kostecki had to come from behind to beat Schumacher, while Vettel beat Brown to take it to a tie-breaker. The two were even at the first split, but a slower second lap for Vettel saw Kostecki take it by over two seconds.