Premat and Kubica secure one-two for Mercedes.

Alexandre Premat of the French ASM team and Robert Kubica of the British Manor Motorsport team helped Mercedes to secure a one-two finish in the 51st running of the Macau F3 Grand Prix.

The race, regarded as the most important and hardest fought Formula 3 race of the season, saw 32 drivers from 15 nations take to the grid, with Mercedes facing competition on the grid from Honda, Nissan, Opel, Renault and Toyota.

Kubica had been fastest in Friday's qualifying whilst his Manor team mate Lewis Hamilton won Saturday's qualification race. Therefore, the Englishman started Sunday's race from pole position.

At the start, Hamilton dropped to second behind Nico Rosberg, but on lap two, both made mistakes under braking while fighting for the lead and slid into the tyre barrier forcing Rosberg to retire while and Hamilton continued at the back of the field. That left Premet out front from Kubica and after 11 laps Premat held a slender lead of just 0.675sec.

However the race was red-flagged after 13 laps following an incident involving six cars with the result counted after 11 laps, allowing Premat, runner-up of the 2004 Formula 3 Euro Series behind his team mate Jamie Green, to add victory in Macau to his win in the prestigious Marlboro Master at Zandvoort in August.

"This was the race of my life time and I'm happy to win also the second important race of the year after my Marlboro Masters victory," Premat said. "It was my first start at Macau, therefore I had to concentrate in the beginning not to make a mistake at this challenging track which I didn't know as well as many of my competitors. I improved throughout the weekend and started the race from third on the grid. After Nico and Lewis had made their mistakes on lap two I took the lead."

Kubica was also pleased to finish on the podium.

"Following my experience from last year, I drove a bit carefully during the opening laps," he said. "I'm happy about my second place at the end of my disappointing season. I proved to be fast and I thank Mercedes-Benz and Manor for their support."

Hamilton ended up 14th, while Euro Series Champion Jamie Green had improved from sixth on the grid to second, when he pitted during a safety car period on lap nine to replace a damaged left rear tyre. He finished 20th. Green's team mate Eric Salignon did not start following an accident on Saturday.

With Mercedes powered cars first and second, Norbert Haug, vice president of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport was delighted with the result.

"A very nice result in the traditional Formula 3 race at Macau and an acknowledgement of Mercedes-Benz's young drivers' support programme," he said. "The race has been turbulent and that makes the one-two victory of Alexandre Premat and Robert Kubica even more impressive.

"ASM and Manor did a great job - congratulations to everybody in the teams and particularly to HWA who have developed the most successful Formula 3 engine of the year from the production engine M271 of the C- and E-Class - this was clearly demonstrated by 17 victories out of 23 races so far."