Holden makes good at Albert Park

Formula One
Defending world champion Fernando Alonso dominated the weekend's Australian Formula One Grand Prix at Melbourne's Albert Park circuit. In cool but fine conditions Alonso passed pole sitter Jenson Button early in the race and from then on was in total control. Click here for CarPoint's Melbourne F1 report.

Craig Lowndes continued his recent form to be the first of the Fords home in third place after Jason Richards was relegated to 28th place for a late braking move that officials deemed unacceptable.

Saturday's longer race saw a win to Steven Richards, giving Larry Perkins his first win in the new team colours. Skaife was second leading home Kelly and setting up the decider for Sunday.

Richards won the start and Garth Tander put plenty of pressure on Skaife as the field went into T1. Max Wilson broke a steering arm which put the WPS Commodore into the wall. Todd Kelly had made a slow start but moved past Lowndes through the fast sweeper before setting out after Tander.

Fabian Coulthard spun the second Sirromet Commodore as Jose Fernandez showed his fondness for the beach with a visit to the Albert Park sand trap.

Tander tried hard to fend off Kelly's advances but Kelly, who was driving Tander's car from last year, eventually raced past him after the two made contact in the front straight at the start of Lap 9.

"We came on to the straight, same as I did with Lowndesy (in the second race)," began Kelly's explanation of the incident. "I didn't touch Garth on to the straight, I just got a good run. I had an overlap and had a run on him and he pulled over and hit me three times past the line there and any one of those times he could have been in the fence. I just ended up right over on the right-hand side of the track. There was no need for that at all."

Tander's version was different but he was pleased to have made it through. "At the end of the day, we have come from 31st to fourth in the third race, and we were in third place there for a while," he said. "Todd (Kelly) was hitting me a couple of times a lap every lap, and basically just pushed his way past. But we are looking forward to New Zealand. We just need to qualify better so we don't have so much work."

Richards was well in command and crossed the line first ahead of Skaife and Kelly. The teams will now look forward to a short break before heading across the Tasman for the second V8 Supercars Championship round at Pukekohe.

A1 Grand Prix
The Czech Republic and Malaysia took out the final races in the inaugural A1 Grand Prix series which wrapped up at the Shanghai circuit on Sunday.

Alex Yoong won the sprint race in his biggest-ever race win, ahead of Darren Manning for Great Britain and Salvador Duran of Mexico.

Czech driver Tomas Enge won the feature race leading home Yoong who held off Australia's Ryan Briscoe in third.

The series was won comfortably by Team France who had clinched the title at the previous round at Laguna Seca.

BMW driver Andy Priaulx (BMW 320si) won the opening race from Yvan Muller and James Thompson, both in Seat Leons, while Augusto Farfus (Alfa Romeo 156) won the second race after a challenge by former Champ Car driver Alex Zanardi ended, following contact between the two. Muller finished second in race two, ahead of the Chevrolet Lacetti of Alain Menu.

Castroneves took the lead on Lap 95 after Dixon pitted for fuel. Castroneves, who again marked the win with his now signature fence climb victory celebration, now leads the IndyCar Series points from Tony Kanaan who finished third heading into the Indy Japan 300 on April 22 at Twin Ring Motegi.

NASCAR
Defending NASCAR Champion Tony Stewart won Sunday's DIRECTV 500 at Martinsville. It was his first win of the season. Jeff Gordon finished second, followed by Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Kyle Busch in a top five cleansweep for Chevrolet.

He returned to the race, the last of the classified runners in 33rd position, but was enthusiastic post-race.

"I feel like we have created a lot of momentum this weekend and I look forward to carrying that into the coming races," he said.

"We are just out there learning as much as we possibly can and we certainly did that today. It is a good feeling to get my first-ever oval race under my belt... I cannot wait to get back out there in a few weeks time in St Louis."