KYALAMI, South Africa- Briton Nigel Mansell won the inaugural Grand Prix Masters race at the Kyalami circuit near Johannesburg on Sunday.
Mansell, 52, led the 30-lap race from start to finish and held off the challenge of Brazil's Emerson Fittipaldi to win by less than half-a-second.
Italians Ricardo Patrese and Andrea de Cesaris finished third and fourth while Briton Derek Warwick and Austrian Hans Stuck completed the top six.
Mansell, who won the F1 world championship in 1992 and won at Kyalami in 1985 and '92, never looked like relinquishing the lead although Fittipaldi pushed him hard, particularly on the last lap.
The pair, the only former F1 world champions in the race, pulled well away from the rest of the chasing pack, finishing 20 seconds ahead of Patrese in third.
The drivers competed in identically prepared cars powered by V8 McLaren Cosworth engines that produce more than 600bhp and reach speeds in excess of 300km/h.
QUICKEST DRIVER
"It was unbelievable, I tried to pull away from Emerson but he kept coming at me," Mansell said.
"I didn't have the traction around the corners to pull away. What a race, what a race. He almost got me at the end but I hung on."
Mansell had been the quickest driver in qualifying on both Friday and Saturday despite suffering from a stomach bug.
Fittipaldi, the 1972 and 1974 F1 world champion, said: "Nigel made no mistakes, which made it difficult for me. He did a fantastic job."
Before the beginning of the race Fittipaldi's car stalled on the starting grid, but the rules of the race allowed him to overtake in the warm-up lap to take his second position on the grid for the start of the race.
Patrese, who started from third on the grid, held off the rest of the field behind him but did not have the pace to compete with the top two.
"I had a lot of dogs biting me from behind," Patrese said. "I think this was a great show and real racing -- it was great.
The series is set to continue in 2006 and based on the success of the first race of this kind for former F1 drivers over the age of 45 the concept looks set to stay.
Organisers said 70,000 spectators attended Sunday's race and over 100,000 attended the three days of racing.
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